Designing a single-chip, six-band UMTS transceiver for world-wide wireless connectivity

To meet this challenge, chip designers are focusing on three major features when designing their next-generation RF (radio frequency) transceivers: small size, low power consumption and support for multi-frequency bands. Creating such a solution requires integrating a true multi-band capability into a single chip, including an adaptive receive baseband filter, fully integrated fractional-N PLLs for both transmission and reception, and multiple, flexibly programmable front-end control. Additionally, the manufacturing process for the chip should be one that results in a footprint that meets the extremely compact cellular phone form factor requirements.

The ideal solution is a single-chip, low-power CMOS RF transceiver that supports all the UMTS frequency bands currently specified within the WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access)-based UTRA FDD (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Frequency Duplex Division) access scheme. UMTS phones incorporating such a chip would be able to be used in Europe, Asia, North America and Japan, ensuring easy access in the areas of the world currently most widely served by cellular services.