This technical brief provides an overview of communication receiver sensitivity. One of the most important parameters in determining the overall performance of a communication system, receiver sensitivity translates directly into communication distance and reliability. A few receiver architectures can offer dependable communication at low cost, if proper design procedures and trade-offs are implemented. RF amplifiers, mixers, and filters are common circuit building blocks for every architecture. System performance is tied to each individual block comprising the receiver. Each circuit generates noise that degrades reception of the desired signal. Understanding noise sources and the methods of minimizing degradation allows optimal design trade-offs for a given cost. Circuit nonlinearity causes undesired signals to hinder the reception of desired signals. A low-noise system design typically does not produce the best linearity, and high linearity typically produces more noise. A thorough understanding of the receiver RF environment

We reconstruct nonlinear models of an Bi--Polar Juntion transistor from time domain input--output data. Weshow that for the drive signals considered here --- amplitude modulated signals --- the models are transportable. I.

Introduction 4.2 A First Glance 4.3 Interconnect Parameters --- Capacitance, Resistance, and Inductance 4.3.1 Capacitance 4.3.2 Resistance 4.3.3 Inductance 4.4 Electrical Wire Models 4.4.1 The Ideal Wire 4.4.2 The Lumped Model 4.4.3 The Lumped RC model 4.4.4 The Distributed rc Line 4.4.5 The Transmission Line 4.5 SPICE Wire Models 4.5.1 Distributed rc Lines in SPICE 4.5.2 Transmission Line Models in SPICE 4.6 Perspective: A Look into the Future chapter4.fm Page 103 Monday, September 6, 1999 1:44 PM 104 THE WIRE Chapter 4 4.1Introduction Throughout most of the past history of integrated circuits, on-chip interconnect wires were considered to be second class citizens that had only to be considered in special cases or when performing high-precision analysis. With the introduction of deep-submicron semiconductor technologies, this picture is undergoing rapid changes. The parasitics effects introduced by the wires displ