With the advent of the era of LTE multi-band and multi-mode smartphones, a new generation of smartphones requires the addition of 2G and 3G modes to support the LTE mode and corresponding operating frequency bands, and to achieve international roaming operating frequency bands, with a total of nearly 40 frequency bands. The rapid increase in frequency bands has caused excessive internal radio frequency (RF) antenna size and power consumption. How to reduce the number and size of antennas and enhance signal reception performance and bandwidth is a problem facing current engineers. RF engineers have put forward higher requirements for RF front-end devices, prompting RF semiconductor manufacturers to accelerate the development of innovative RF technologies and solutions, including RF MEMS and software-defined radio (SDR), antenna frequency adjustment and other emerging technologies, which have been received by terminal equipment manufacturers. attention.
RF MEMS technology improves mobile phone antenna performance and saves costs
With the improvement of RF technology requirements in the industry, chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek have begun to actively strengthen RF solutions. Qualcomm first introduced the industry's first CMOS power amplifier (PA) to improve RF performance and cost. Because the advantages of chip manufacturers' RF solutions are signal enhancement and noise cancellation at the processor end, the effect of optimizing the size of RF antennas and transmission power consumption is still very limited. The industry has begun to focus on RF products using MEMS technology.
RF MEMS is a research hotspot in the MEMS field in recent years. It is based on a mechanical resonant structure. As long as the distance of the internal partition is changed, the capacitance flow can be changed, which can eliminate external capacitors and switches and other components, reducing the overall power consumption and volume of the antenna; In addition, it has programmability, supports software radio (SDR) functions, and implements antenna frequency adjustment, adjustable impedance matching and other control schemes, helping to simplify RF front-end module (FEM) design, enhance signal reception performance, bandwidth, and reduce antennas Quantity. This achieves high on-chip integration of the RF system, eliminates parasitic losses caused by discrete components, and truly achieves high cohesion and low coupling of the system, which can significantly improve system performance.
Dennis Yost, president of Cavendish KineTIcs, a designer and manufacturer of radio frequency micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), said that with the continuous increase in the frequency band of smart phones, how to improve the performance of RF antennas without affecting the system footprint and power consumption performance has become an RF device The focus of product development with mobile phone manufacturers has led to a new round of RF technology revolution, which brings new opportunities for RF MEMS technology with excellent size and performance.
Yost further introduced that LTE mobile phones using Cavendish KineTIcs RF MEMS technology are expected to be launched in the near future. Currently, Cavendish KineTIcs is working closely with a number of mobile phone manufacturers, and will initially lock in high-end LTE multi-frequency multi-mode mobile phone applications, to be gradually reached After the scale of the production economy, it will enter the low-end mobile phone market.
Yost expects the rapid development of RF MEMS technology from 2014 to 2016, including the power amplifier, filter and duplexer of the RF front-end module can be dynamically adjusted to achieve higher efficiency; in addition, due to RF MEMS compatibility The CMOS process also supports digital interfaces. In the future, it may be further integrated with logic chips to achieve a more integrated mobile phone system solution. At the same time, the overall bill of materials (BOM) cost of RF MEMS is lower than that of traditional RF design due to the reduction of peripheral devices, and the transmission efficiency can be increased by 35% on average in various LTE frequency bands. RF MEMS will become a mobile phone design in the next 5 to 10 years One of the key technologies in the.
The industry expects the evolution of RF MEMS technology in the next four years
Software radio (SDR) technology is increasingly mature and will enter LTE mobile phones
Differences in spectrum planning in various countries and telecom operators have also deployed FDD or TDD LTE networks, which complicates the demand for mobile phone antenna functions. In addition to the emerging RF technology, chipmakers and system manufacturers have begun to adopt increasingly mature SDR technology, hoping to automatically detect and switch to the best LTE frequency band in the user's location through software programming functions, with the smallest amplitude of RF hardware changes, Optimize mobile phone performance.
NVIDIA has taken the lead in the introduction of LTE software-defined modem (Modem) in Tegra 4i, starting the first shot of SDR technology in mobile phone RF applications. At present, at least 20 more processor manufacturers plan to adopt SDR technology to help system manufacturers improve LTE mobile phone antenna size and power consumption. Perhaps SDR technology will be one of the key drivers for accelerating the launch of LTE mobile phones and achieving global roaming.
Chris Rowen, founder of microprocessor manufacturer Tensilica, said that with the addition of multiple input and multiple output (MIMO), carrier aggregation (Carrier AggregaTIon) and other functions to LTE mobile phones, the performance requirements for antennas will be greatly improved. Low power consumption, small size design, will use SDR technology to develop specific baseband RF subsystem or enhanced receiver (Turbo Receiver) to meet the design requirements of LTE, LTE-Advanced.
to sum up
Usually mobile phone manufacturers and technical departments are very cautious about the evaluation of replacement design solutions and devices, so as not to increase the risk of investment and product listing. In recent years, traditional RF manufacturers have also begun to actively develop innovative RF technologies to meet the challenges of multi-mode and multi-frequency. As new technologies for terminal applications, RF MEMS and SDR require a long process to be fully accepted by terminal manufacturers and design engineers. However, the many advantages of MEMS and SDR technologies will surely become one of the main RF reference technologies for LTE and LTE-Advanced multi-frequency and multi-mode mobile phones.
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