RF modules key to new mobile designs

In the highly competitive mobile handset business, manufacturers face continuous pressure to deliver sleek form factors with ever more functionality in increasingly compressed time frames. Some designers are looking to highly integrated radio components to meet today's challenging market demands.

The definition of integration is -- ''the act of or instance of combining into an integral whole.'' Sounds simple enough, but integration should not just be a euphemism for sticking things together that don't work together by any means possible -- be it duct tape or sheer force of will.

Real integration adds more! Real integration offers handset manufacturers an elegant technology solution that offers benefits beyond reclaiming pc board real estate; Built properly with state of the art technological advances, highly integrated RF modules solutions can reduce engineering effort and design cycle times while offering improved radio performance.

With constant pressure on space, functionality and time to market, handset manufacturers are moving over to integrated modules in their handset designs.

Size Matters

The original Motorola ''brick'' phone measured a whopping 8.3- x 4.5- by 19.5-cm and weighed 670 grams. In a retrospective tear down by Portelligent for EE Times in May 2006, the RF components, including a power amplifier and duplex filter, were estimated to be more than 100 times the weight and volume of the modern equivalent.

Since the very first mobile phone call, RF manufacturers have been working to reduce the size of their footprint while increasing performance of the components. The evolution of CMOS processes has enabled handsets manufacturers to include even more processing power in today's phones than was available in earlier computers.

And with this comes built-in extras like Bluetooth, cameras, FM radios, GPS, MP3 players, e-mail multimedia and web browsers, big displays, full text keyboards, WiFi, even TV receivers and video capability.

To carry the increasing burden of data throughput needed to support these features, Multimode/Multiband radios are becoming more and more prevalent inside phones further compounding already tight quarters. This rapid progress is truly awesome but all of these features are vying for pc board space while the form factor continues to decrease in size.

Handset manufacturers are looking for every possibility to trim the size of the components needed to make the rich features work. One way to save space is to integrate the RF front-end components. Rather than using three separate components such as a PA, duplexer, and transceiver, handset manufacturers are turning to highly integrated modules to provide the functionality of previously separate products.

Not only must these modules offer size reductions, but also maintain high levels of performance. The technology packed into today's high throw count switches means they not only offer a smaller footprint but also service multiple radio bands from one antenna, in effect, reducing the overall footprint by another order of magnitude.