Patent ID: 8139670

Claim:
A modular MIMO RF transceiver comprising: a local oscillator generating a local oscillator signal; a plurality of transceiver blocks including at least a first transceiver block, a second transceiver block, and a third transceiver block, wherein one or more of the plurality of transceiver blocks includes a local oscillator signal repeater, and wherein the plurality of transceiver blocks are arranged sequentially from a frequency synthesizer; a local oscillator signal repeater associated with a transceiver block nearest the frequency synthesizer, wherein the local oscillator signal repeater is configured to i) receive the local oscillator signal as an input from the local oscillator and ii) output a repeated local oscillator signal to a next transceiver block; a plurality of sets of signal interface pins, including at least a first set of signal interface pins, a second set of signal interface pins, and a third set of signal interface pins; a first multiplexer that switches between i) connecting transmit signals from the first set of signal interface pins to the first transceiver block and ii) connecting receive signals from the second transceiver block to the first set of signal interface pins; a second multiplexer that switches between i) connecting transmit signals from the second set of signal interface pins to the second transceiver block and ii) connecting receive signals from the third transceiver block to the second set of signal interface pins; and a third multiplexer that switches between i) connecting transmit signals from the third set of signal interface pins to the third transceiver block and ii) connecting receive signals from the first transceiver block to the third set of signal interface pins.