Fujitsu Microelectronics Asia Pte Ltd (FMAL) has announced the first product in its entry into the mobile phone RF transceiver market, an RF transceiver IC for mobile phones supporting 2G GSM/GPS/EDGE and 3G UMTS/HSPA protocols, that includes a 3G DigRF interface on a single chip. The compact new transceiver IC also eliminates the need for external SAW filters, and low-noise amplifiers (LNA), and enables mobile phone manufacturers to reduce component count, board space and bill of materials. While a simplified programming model helps to significantly reduce development time and simplify integration of the RF into a radio platform.
The MB86L01A transceiver embeds LNAs on-chip. Its architecture also eliminates the need for external SAW filters, thus reducing total component count. Enclosed in a small form-factor 142-pin LGA package of 7.1x5.9mm, the reduced space of the RF system helps realize smaller form-factor mobile phones.
Previously, RF design was focused on hardware with analog circuits. This transceiver IC includes digital circuit technology so that it can output digital signals to allow control of external components - such as antenna switch and power amplifier - thus simplifying the system. In addition, an embedded CPU allows simple programming to control functionality of the RF system or make filtering adjustments. This simplified programming model significantly reduces development, testing and verification time.
Integrated into the transceiver is a 3G DigRF interface, a standard for connecting a transceiver IC and baseband IC, thus making it compatible with DigRF baseband ICs.
The development of the MB86L01A transceiver IC was enabled in part by the recent acquisition by Fujitsu Microelectronics of licenses and rights to the technology and intellectual property related to Freescale Semiconductor Inc.’s RF transceiver products for mobile phones, and by Fujitsu’s acquisition of an RF team from Freescale in the United States. More than 130 of those design engineers are working on RF transceiver IC design, architecture, validation, verification, and reference designs. The group is also working on the next-generation high bit-rate transceiver ICs.
Fujitsu Microelectronics Asia
Fujitsu Microelectronics
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