August 2010 Single-Chip Bluetooth Platform The Bluetooth platform developed by CSR is a single-mode, single-chip low-energy platform. Low-energy Bluetooth systems are important to the wireless communications sector for applications like remote controls, health and well-being devices, computer interface devices, automotive RKE functionality, smart-energy appliances, and proximity tagging. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has already adopted the Bluetooth v4.0 specification. In fact, CSR has qualified ... — Paul Whytock August 2010 Front-End Module Serves 900-MHz ISM Band WITH ADVANCED METERING INFRASTRUCTURE (AMI) and other applications in the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band gaining in popularity, the RF3858 front-end module is a promising solution for portable equipment in need of size reduction. It also reduces the number of components outside of the core chipset. The RF3858 contains a power amplifier (PA) transmit/receive (Tx/Rx) transfer switch, low-noise amplifier (LNA) with bypass mode, and matching components. That LNA... — Nancy Friedrich July 2010 DDS RFIC Performs Direct Digital Modulation With the increasing availability of ultra-highspeed digital-to-analog converters (DACs), a direct digital synthesizer (DDS) can generate waveforms exceeding 1 GHz. Until now, however, no higheroutput DDSs have been able to provide the desired modulation capabilities. Now, what is thought to be the first DDS RFIC with greater than 1 GHz output and direct digital FM and PM capabilities has been presented by Xueyang Geng, Fa Foster Dai, J. David Irwin, and Richard C.... — Nancy Friedrich July 2010 Transceiver IC Tackles 3G, LTE Mobile handsets must pack a great deal of functionality within a compact package to even approach modern customers’ expectations. In order to handle different bands and operating modes, RF front-end modules (FEMs) typically employ low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) and filters for each receiver band, and power amplifiers (PAs) and filters for each transmit band. But Fujitsu Microelectronics America has... — Jack Browne June 2010 NXP Commits To SiGe Roadmap As Sales Of ICODE Chips Hit A Billion Eindhoven, Netherlands: By the end of this year, NXP Semiconductors plans to release 50 different products based on its new silicon germanium: carbide (SiGe:C) process technology. The process, dubbed QUBiC4, is designed to meet the needs of high-frequency applications in the wireless, broadband communications, networking, and multimedia markets. An advantage of the SiGe:C QUBiC4 process is that it allows manufacturers of wireless systems to add more... — Paul Whytock June 2010 One Billion Devices AMONG THESE ACHIEVEMENTS, NXP also is celebrating a production milestone with its ICODE chip. Recently, the company shipped its one-billionth component. In an effort to maintain this device’s success, NXP has launched the ICODE SLIx platform (Figure 1). This platform offers enhanced flexibility and 100-percent backward compatibility with existing solutions. ICODE SLIx vows to ... — Paul Whytock May 2010 RFID Chip Helps To Reduce Safety Concerns WOLLERAU, SWITZERLAND—IDS Microchip began shipping development kits to early adopters for a novel radio-frequency-identification (RFID) sensor and data logging chip. Dubbed the IDS-SL900A, the chip is based on the EPC second-generation standard for supply chain applications. It therefore enables a vast new array of medical, food, healthcare, and environmental-supervision applications that ensure quality and/or freshness. This RFID chip can... — Dawn Hightower May 2010 Healthcare Segment Offers Plentiful RF Prospects For years, microwave companies have been selling components for medical imaging applications, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems. While imaging continues to offer viable opportunities, many additional medical application areas are emerging for wireless microwave and RF technologies. Remote monitoring, for example, allows patients to stay at home while health status reports, such as blood pressure and pulse rate, are sent wirelessly to... — Nancy Friedrich May 2010 MMICs Serve Key Transceiver Functions Monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) based on gal l ium arsenide (GaAs) have been a part of this industry for a quarter century. And Freescale Semiconductor, the former Motorola Semiconductor, has enjoyed a long history of product development in analog and digital integrated circuits (ICs) and high-power RF transistors. But, although the firm has not lacked for the technological ... — Monte Miller , et al. May 11, 2010 Sizing Up Benefits Of Wafer-Scale Packaging Wafer-scale packaging (WSP) is a bold new approach to housing semiconductors. It uses a semiconductor process to create a package around an IC—a package that is only slightly larger than the chip itself. To learn more about WSP technology, don’t miss this FAQ, sponsored by Avago Technologies — Staff April 2010 Breakthrough Builds MEMS On Standard CMOS Wafer A Spanish company, Baolab Systems, has pioneered a new technology that is expected to cut the cost of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) while strongly impacting mobile communication design. Key to this breakthrough is the company’s ability to construct nanoscale MEMS within the structure of a silicon complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) wafer using standard, high-volume CMOS processing technology (... — Paul Whytock April 2010 MEMS Expands Its CMOS Presence According to Germany-based MEMS foundry X-Fab, one of its prime assets is the in-house co-existence of MEMS and CMOS mixed-signal processes. Because MEMS devices are manufactured using techniques that are similar to those employed for ICs, X-FAB plans to exploit the synergies offered by the alliance of both technologies. It has a dedicated 400 m2 of MEMS backend cleanroom and 1200 m2 of CMOS front-end cleanroom. In total, the X-FAB MEMS foundry boasts a... — Paul Whytock March 2010 SoC Cuts PA Distortion While Raising Efficiency LAFOX, IL—Richardson Electronics Ltd. has teamed with Scintera, Inc. to bring Scintera’s SC1887 system-on-a-chip (SoC) to market. The SC1887 promises to deliver power-amplifier (PA) linearity improvements without requiring access to in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) baseband signals. The SoC supposedly eliminates any need for software development. Because the SC1887 automatically calibrates and adjusts to the signal environment, a training algorithm is not required. ... — Dawn Hightower March 2010 SoC Makes Breakthrough For Global Foundries—in conjunction with ARM—Spain’s mobile-communications techfest offered an opportunity to unveil a system-on-a-chip (SoC) technology for powering next-generation wireless products and applications. The chip manufacturing platform involves the merging of two Global Foundries process variants: the 28-nm super-low-power (SLP) process for mobile and consumer applications and 28-nm high-performance (HP) process. Compared to 40/45-nm technologies, the... — Paul Whytock February 2010 Device Processes Differ In Benefits Semiconductor processes have their differences. Some provide high power densities; some excel in integration of different functions. Understanding the differences is helpful not just to those choosing foundry services, but for anyone trying to understand the capabilities of different integrated circuits (ICs). More than three decades ago, a point of debate in RF/microwave semiconductors had to do with whether not only if a fledgling technology... — Jack Browne February 2010 Chip Helps Manage M2M Mobile Communications GENEVA, SWITZERLAND—Smart-card integrated-circuit (IC) maker STMicroelectronics has developed a low-power processor chip dedicated to managing SIM data for machine-to-machine (M2M) cellular communications. Recent research is suggesting that this expanding market could account for over 200 million mobile connections by 2013. The ST32-M IC family combines the advantages of nonproprietary processor architecture and high-density, low-power,... — Paul Whytock February 2010 Properly Packaging RF Semiconductors Electronic packaging usually serves to protect what lies within. For RF and microwave devices, however, an ideal package must provide a physical barrier while appearing electrically invisible. And with the trend for increasing levels of integration at higher frequencies (see Wireless Demands Focus Designers On Integration), packages must often take on the electrical characteristics... — Jack Browne November 2009 MMICs Serve MM-Wave Systems Microwave and millimeter- wave radios require a number of functions, including amplifiers, filters, and attenuators. To fuel those radio designs, Endwave Corp. has developed a line of monolithic-microwave-integrated- circuit (MMIC) components covering 7 to 38 GHz as well as 71 to 86 GHz. Based on the firm’s extensive design library, these MMIC components are available for a variety of functions, ... — Jack Browne November 2009 Scientists Demonstrate Wafer-Scale Graphene-On-Silicon Technology MALIBU, CA HRL scientists have fabricated and demonstrated graphene- on-silicon field-effect transistors (FETs) at full wafer scale. This work is part of the Carbon Electronics for RF Applications (CERA) program, which is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and under the management of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center. CERA’s goal is to exploit the unique physical characteristics of graphene to create electronic... — Dawn Hightower October 2009 50-V LDMOS Transistors Target TV Broadcast Transmitters TO SERVE TV TRANSMITTERS employing both analog and digital modulation formats, the MRF6V3090N RF power LDMOS transistor delivers 90 W peak output power at 1-dB compression with greater than 40 percent efficiency through the ultra-high-frequency (UHF) band. As a linear driver, the MRF6V3090N achieves 21 dB power gain and 12 percent drain efficiency with an average output power of 4.5 W based on a DVB-T OFDM signal. The transistor offers an adjacentchannel power... — Nancy Friedrich |
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