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Wireless standards necessarily pursue a dual path of consolidation and expansion, as if this were a law of nature. Market forces demand this. Wi-Fi solution providers were quick to integrate 802.11a/g with their 802.11b solutions. GSM solutions necessarily integrated EDGE. In the same manner, combined GSM-EDGE-WCDMA solutions are also unavoidable.

These same market forces drive the multimode aspect of transceiver design as well as the multiband perspective. Solutions that were acceptable for single- or dual-band applications may not be acceptable for triple- and quad-band service where external component cost and size become unacceptable. Transceiver designers must be increasingly forward-looking in anticipation of these factors, while at the same time employ measured restraint so that present customer demands are well served in the near-term. The discussion that follows focuses on attaining some of the more demanding requirements that are commensurate with a highly integrated GSM-EDGE-WCDMA transceiver solution, and the role these requirements play in transceiver architecture selection.

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