Semiconductor passive integration shrinks RF amp

Royal Philips Electronics has developed an innovative new semiconductor passive integration technology which will offer handset manufacturers highly integrated, low-cost solutions for mobile handsets.

Royal Philips Electronics has developed an innovative new semiconductor passive integration technology which will offer handset manufacturers highly integrated, low-cost solutions for mobile handsets.

The technology is specifically designed for integrating high- quality passive components onto low-cost silicon, producing RF components with better performance and smaller size than conventional surface mount design (SMD) passive component technology.

"We realised that one of the key challenges for improving RF performance lay in the high quality integration of passive RF components", said Paul van der Plas, general manager and director PA Business at Philips.

"We are helping handset manufacturers move towards highly cost-effective front end modules, and our passive integration technology offers exciting possibilities for increased integration of RF solutions into a much smaller area than previously thought possible".

Philips' passive integration technology offers very low parasitic losses, and a packing density at least three times higher than conventional SMD technologies, by enabling the superior accuracy associated with wafer processing in comparison to SMD component manufacturing.

The technology also avoids the variations in RF performance, due to placement inaccuracies of SMD, and reduces the size of the RF solution, as well as the number of components, thereby providing better overall reliability.

Philips' passive integration technology will serve as a platform onto which novel passive components will be integrated for switching functions, filtering and bias decoupling.

Philips has already designed its first product using its passive integration technology.

The BGY282 triple-band GSM power amplifier module is the world's first power amplifier module based on the new technology.

The product is designed using two low-cost, high precision, passive integration chips, which replace the complex SMD matching circuit and reduce the chip size by two-thirds.

(This was Electronicstalk's Top Story on 26 February 2002).

(This was Electronicstalk's Top Story on 26 February 2002).

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