The key word is software defined radio. The implementation of wireless communication system is accomplished by using the socalled software radio platforms. A software defined system is composed of a base band digital signal processing unit which is a VLSI programmer platform such as digital signal processors, field programmable gate arrays and configurable processors, digital to analog and analog to digital converetrs which can be considered also VLSI circuits an the rf analog front end which consists of VLSI analog circuits such as amplifiers and frequency synthesizers and mixers. The functions implemented in base band processing are the source coding, the channel coding and modulation in addition to digital filtering and multiplexing.
VLSI stands for very large scale integrated circuit. It typically refers to digital technology.
The realization of VLSI is today typically in CMOS, if you are an independent researcher, from one of the mayor fabs. (TSMC, Global, UMC, SMIC).
In CMOS, you have generations, like CMOS55LP, CMOS40LP, CMOS90LP, CMOS28LP.
For a wireless 'solution', eg Wifi, BTLE, 802.15.4, or mobile phone technology, there is part 'analog' circuit, part 'digital'. Now, both can be realized in CMOS (in any of the process flavours given above.)
If you want to do something in wireless and VLSI, it seems you could make a CMOS chip containing both analog and digital. Note that the implementation of a full standard (cfr above) is typically a lot of work, many man-years.
Dear Hari, we have summarized some reported SDR platforms to integrate wireless communication nodes to VLSI programmable circuits. Maybe you may find additional info, ckeck for the references also, on the conference paper from our team:
Conference Paper COGNITIVE RADIO PLATFORMS: A SURVEY