Xiaopeng Li - Böcker

This volume comprises the proceedings of Smartnet'2002, the seventh conference on Intelligence in Networks, which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and organized by Working Group 6.7. The conference series closely reflects the developments in networking. At the beginning of the 21st century we are facing two conflicting trends: the increasing popularity of the Internet and the growth of mobile communications. The traditional Internet approach is to regard a network as a dummy pipe of bits and place all the intelligence in the end-devices. The traditional telecom approach is to regard the end-devices as dummy senders or receivers of bits and to put all the intelligence in the network. For fixed-line access to the Internet using a powerful PC, the Internet approach is plausible. However, for a nomadic user, who sometimes accesses services through a fixed-line Internet connection and, at other times, through a wireless connection using a restricted-capability access device, the situation becomes intolerable. Intelligence needs to be distributed and partially replicated in end-user devices, access networks, and the core network.The presentations in this volume consider these trends and cover three major topics: platform software, services, and protocols. The sessions on platform software address various aspects of software infrastructure in networks including object-orientation, components, agents, and plug-and-play. The session on services includes interactive TV, group communication, and location awareness. The session on protocols discusses bandwidth brokers, authentication, and protocol testing.

Wireless communications is witnessing tremendous growth with proliferation of different standards covering wide, local and personal area networks (WAN, LAN and PAN). Contemporary trends call for designs that allow: smooth migration to future generations of wireless standards with higher data rates for multimedia applications; convergence of wireless services allowing access to different standards from the same wireless device; and cost effective design solutions for intercontinental roaming. This requires designs that work across multiple wireless standards, can easily be reused, achieve maximum hardware share at minimum power consumption levels particularly for mobile battery-operated devices. While serious efforts are underway to develop highly integrated solutions for digital basebands covering multiple standards, emerging multi-standard, multi-band wireless devices use "stacked" transceivers, that is, separate transceivers for different standards. This represents a major bottleneck in attempting to achieve higher levels of integration and reduce the bill of material for a multi-standard wireless device.Development of radio architectures and mixed-signal design solutions that support multiple standards is therefore needed. This is one of the main objectives of this book. It covers both the analysis and design aspects of CMOS radio receivers with primary focus on receivers for mobile terminals. The subject of multi-standard data converter design for base stations is also covered. The book also details a complete analysis of a multi-standard receiver chain from the antenna to the data converter establishing the design specifications of all blocks in both the radio and mixed-signal parts. The specifications are conveniently tabulated throughout the book and span a level of details from the noise figure and linearity requirements of RF blocks down to such circuit details as, for example, DC gain, settling behaviour, noise and matching requirements of amplifiers (OTAs) in the data converter.