According to one embodiment of the invention, a compact wireless modem card placement in compliance with thickness requirement of type II PCMCIA standard and type II Compact Flash form factor standard is provided which includes a first side and a second side. The first side has a height clearance of approximately 2 mm. The second side, which is opposite the first side, has a height clearance of approximately 1.45 mm. In one embodiment, those components with a height greater than 1.4 mm are placed on the first side of the card. The first side of the card includes a radio-frequency transmitter (RFT) chip located at the lower left of the first side. The RFT chip performs signal processing functions to up-convert baseband signals received from a mobile station modem (MSM) chip to radio-frequency signals. The first side also includes a radio-frequency (RF) surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter located above and to the left of the RFT chip. The space between the RFT chip and the RF SAW filter is used to route the transmission line from each respective driver.