Tunable RF Components and Circuits Applications in Mobile Handsets

339 Pages·2016·26.955 MB·English

by  Jeffrey L. Hilbert

•
Tunable RF
•
•
Components
•
• Circuits
and
APPLICATIONS IN MOBILE HANDSETS
EDITED BY
Jeffrey L. Hilbert
Tunable RF
Components
Circuits
and
APPLICATIONS IN MOBILE HANDSETS
Devices, Circuits, and Systems
Series Editor
Krzysztof Iniewski
CMOS Emerging Technologies Inc., Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Atomic Nanoscale Technology in the Nuclear Industry
Taeho Woo
Nano-Semiconductors: Devices and Technology
Krzysztof Iniewski
Electrical Solitons: Theory, Design, and Applications
David Ricketts and Donhee Ham
Radiation Effects in Semiconductors
Krzysztof Iniewski
Electronics for Radiation Detection
Krzysztof Iniewski
Semiconductor Radiation Detection Systems
Krzysztof Iniewski
Internet Networks: Wired, Wireless, and Optical Technologies
Krzysztof Iniewski
Integrated Microsystems: Electronics, Photonics, and Biotechnology
Krzysztof Iniewski
FORTHCOMING
Telecommunication Networks
Eugenio Iannone
Optical, Acoustic, Magnetic, and Mechanical Sensor Technologies
Krzysztof Iniewski
Biological and Medical Sensor Technologies
Krzysztof Iniewski
Tunable RF
Components
Circuits
and
APPLICATIONS IN MOBILE HANDSETS
EDITED BY
Jeffrey L. Hilbert
WiSpry, Incorporated, Irvine, California, USA
Krzysztof Iniewski
MANAGING EDITOR
CMOS Emerging Technologies Research Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Boca Raton London New York
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Contents
Preface.......................................................................................................................ix
Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................xiii
Series Editor .............................................................................................................xv
Editor .....................................................................................................................xvii
Contributors ............................................................................................................xix
Chapter 1 Tunable RF Market Overview ..............................................................1
Jeffrey L. Hilbert
Chapter 2 RFSOI Technologies on HR Silicon Substrates for
Reconigurable Wireless Solutions .....................................................23
Julio Costa
Chapter 3 BST Technology for Mobile Applications ..........................................47
James G. Oakes and David W. Laks
Chapter 4 Tuned Antennas for Embedded Applications ....................................73
Frank Caimi
Chapter 5 Tunable and Adaptive Antenna Systems ..........................................103
Laurent Desclos, Sebastian Rowson, and Jeff Shamblin
Chapter 6 Effective Antenna Aperture Tuning with RF-MEMS .....................123
Larry Morrell and Paul Tornatta
Chapter 7 RF-CMOS Impedance Tuners: Performance Metrics and
Design Trade-Offs ............................................................................145
Tero Ranta
Chapter 8 Handset Antenna Tuning Using BST ...............................................165
Paul McIntosh
Chapter 9 Aperture-Tunable Antennas: Handset OEM Perspective .................191
Ping Shi
vii
viii Contents
Chapter 10 Power Ampliier Envelope Tracking ................................................205
Jeremy Hendy and Gerard Wimpenny
Chapter 11 MEMS Switching in the Handset RF Front End .............................243
Igor Lalicevic
Chapter 12 Case Study of Tunable Radio Architectures ....................................257
Alpaslan Demir and Tanbir Haque
Chapter 13 Network Operator Perspectives ........................................................277
Yuang Lou
Chapter 14 Testing Wireless Devices in Manufacturing ....................................299
Rob Brownstein and Minh-Chau Huynh
Preface
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.
Victor Hugo (1852)
Tunable RF’s time has come. Arguably, it may be long overdue. With the continuing
explosive growth of mobile communications on a global scale, whether measured in
terms of users, handsets, data trafic, networks, and/or frequency bands, ubiquitous,
reliable wireless connectivity has never been more important. But innovation in the
portion of the mobile handset architecture that most directly enables network con-
nectivity, the radio frequency (RF) front end, has taken a backseat to continuing
advancements in other parts of the handset. Whereas most mobile handset users
have some idea about the functions and value of a faster processor, more memory,
or a larger screen since these components are more easily connected to observable
user beneits, the same is not true about the value or function of the antennas, ampli-
iers, switches, and ilters in the RF front end. (Witness the “Antennagate” episode
a few years ago, and the resulting calls I received from various reporters, some of
whom wanted to know what an antenna does and why it is so important.) Of course,
without a robust front-end solution, accessing the beneits provided by advance-
ments in other parts of the handset becomes, at a minimum, problematic. And it is
perhaps interesting to note that, when surveyed, a majority of handset users regu-
larly cite battery life, dropped calls, and data speed as among the biggest concerns
with their mobile service, all of which are heavily driven by the performance of the
RF front end.
So, why have advancements in the RF front-end architecture lagged those in the
rest of the handset? Perhaps the simplest answer is, until recently, complementary
metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies and design techniques have not
supported the levels of performance required of RF components. As a result, a col-
lection of various higher-performance specialty technologies (acoustics, ceramics,
magnetics, gallium arsenide semiconductors) have been utilized to implement the
various RF functions. These functions have been interconnected into chains of RF
components through 50 ohm interfaces, with each such chain optimized to work for
a speciic mode or frequency of operation. As more modes and frequencies are added
to the handset, more chains are added, and interconnected by higher and higher
throw count switches. A second answer is that by throwing more processing power
and memory into the handset, and shifting more hardware functionality into soft-
ware, in other words, by using Moore’s law scaling, we have been able to (barely)
keep pace with demand. However, with no end to data demand in sight, and net-
work performance improvements already deined for future releases of 4G, we have
reached a tipping point where traditional RF front-end architectures have become
a major bottleneck in enabling the industrial design and performance attributes of
handsets that customers are demanding.
ix