Wideband transmitter front-end

1. A transmitter for wireless communication, comprising:

a single wideband tunable modulator having tuning range from 300 MHz all the way up to 3.6 GHz;

a number of power amplifiers, wherein a particular power amplifier is associated with a particular frequency band; and

a single wideband power amplifier (PA) driver coupled to the single wideband tunable modulator and the power amplifiers, wherein the single wideband PA driver is coupled to the power amplifiers via a band-selection switch, and wherein the single wideband PA driver is configured to:

receive an output signal from the wideband tunable modulator, wherein a frequency of the output signal is between 300 MHz and 3.6 GHz;

amplify the output signal; and

send the amplified output signal to at least one of the power amplifiers via the band-selection switch.

2. The transmitter of claim 1 , further comprising a single-pole multiple-throw switch situated between the wideband PA driver and the power amplifiers, wherein the switch is configured to switch the amplified output signal to one of the power amplifiers based on a carrier frequency of the output signal.

3. The transmitter of claim 1 , wherein the wideband tunable modulator and the power amplifiers are located on a same integrated circuit (IC) chip.

4. The transmitter of claim 1 , wherein the wideband tunable modulator is a quadrature modulator.

5. The transmitter of claim 1 , wherein the single wideband tunable modulator includes an amplifier, wherein a bandwidth of the amplifier is compensated for by using an inductive peaking technique.

6. The transmitter of claim 1 , wherein the wideband PA driver includes a cascode amplifier.

7. The transmitter of claim 6 , wherein the cascode amplifier has two poles.

8. The transmitter of claim 7 , wherein the cascode amplifier includes an inductor that is serially coupled to a parasitic capacitor.

9. The transmitter of claim 8 , wherein the inductor has an inductance between 0.5 nH and 10 nH.

10. The transmitter of claim 1 , wherein the single wideband PA driver has a 10 dB bandwidth that is up to 3.6 GHz.

11. A method for generating a transmitter output for wireless communication, comprising:

receiving a baseband signal;

modulating the baseband signal onto an RF carrier, wherein the RF carrier has a frequency that ranges from 300 MHz to 3.6 GHz;

pre-amplifying the modulated signal using a single on-chip amplifier driver regardless of the RF carrier frequency, wherein the single on-chip amplifier driver is coupled to a group of power amplifiers via a band-selection switch; and

sending the pre-amplified modulated signal via the band-selection switch to a power amplifier selected from the group of power amplifiers based on the RF carrier frequency.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein modulating the baseband signal is performed by an on-chip tunable modulator.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the on-chip tunable modulator includes an amplifier, wherein a bandwidth of the amplifier is compensated for by using an inductive peaking technique.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the amplifier is a cascode amplifier.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein modulating the baseband signal involves quadrature modulating.

16. The method of claim 11 , wherein pre-amplifying the modulated signal is performed by a cascode amplifier.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the cascode amplifier has two poles.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the cascode amplifier includes an inductor that is serially coupled to a parasitic capacitor.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the inductor has an inductance between 0.5 nH and 10 nH.