This short UCL CPD course will give you a good grounding in a range of RF (radio frequency) devices including the fundamentals of device physics, RF circuits, system architectures and noise measurement techniques.

You'll learn about impedance matching, stability and noise figure for amplifier circuit design.

This will be consolidated with a full-day computer simulation exercise where you'll perform RF amplifier design tasks using the industry standard software package Agilent ADS.

Who this course is for

The department's short courses/CPD modules are aimed at those working in the telecommunications industry such as researchers, engineers, IT professionals and managers. 

They're particularly suited to graduates in electronic and electrical engineering, communications engineering and computer science who want to further their knowledge on a particular topic, or work towards a Master's degree. 

You don't need to have any pre-requisite qualifications to take this course.

Course content

You'll cover the following during this course:

• Introduction to RF spectrum, applications, devices and fabrication technologies
• Fabrication of passive elements: inductors, capacitors and resistors
• Review of key aspects of semiconductor physics: band structure, effective mass and mobility, quantum wells and tunnelling
• Two-terminal devices: transferred electron devices (Gunn diodes), IMPATT diodes, varactors, PIN diodes, tunnel diodes and quantum tunnel diodes
• Overview of different transistor technologies for RF/microwave applications
• Introduction to coaxial, microstrip, coplanar transmission lines and planar filters, two-port networks and the scattering parameters
• Impedance matching techniques (two-element L network, three-element matching, designing with Smith Chart, transmission-line matching network)
• Introduction to monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC)
• RF transistor amplifier design using scattering parameters (constant gain circle and constant noise circle)
• Stability consideration and techniques for improving stability
• Introduction to balanced amplifiers and distributed amplifiers
• Full-day computer simulation exercise using Agilent ADS for RF amplifier design
• RF transmitters and receivers
• Noise and noise figure
• Mixers and modulators
• Intermodulation and dynamic range
• Practical measurement of noise figure and intermodulation
• Amplifier linearisation techniques

This is an in person course and will take place at:  UCL Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Roberts Building, Torrington Place, London, WC1E 7JE, United Kingdom

Cost: £1,500