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Innovating in RF Today to Meet the Communication Requirements of Tomorrow

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Navi Miglani
Sr. Director Marketing and Applications, RF Division
Published: April 27, 2019

Our world is increasingly becoming a hyper-connected community where access to data on-the -go with low latency and high data rates is considered a basic requirement for mobile users. This is evolving from consumer and personal communications to enterprises and the Internet of Things. While this may seem a simple requirement, meeting these expectations involves an immense investment in network design and evolution to provide. These are driving the development of cost-effective networks that can scale economically and have optimal performance whatever the conditions thrown at it at any given time.

New standards for mobile telecommunications such as 5G NR will help users by realizing up to 10 Gbps data rate per user, 1 ms latency in data delivery, 1000 times the bandwidth per unit area and up to 10 times the number of connected devices per unit area compared to 4G LTE. However, this by itself does not solve all of the issues.

It is incumbent on both network operators and technology providers to design for conditions that may not be ideal in terms of infrastructure location, for smaller form factors that may not allow for the most optimal technical design and for changing environmental conditions. This will, in turn, require the semiconductors at the heart of such systems to be flexible enough to adapt their performance.

Such improvements need to have the following attributes in order to fully demonstrate that they solve key real world problems:

  1. They must improve system level performance and must be repeatable:
    1. Key system performance parameters should be maintained as the system adjusts to capacity, user location or environmental changes without the need for more complex operations that would have an adverse effect on power consumption needs.
    2. The system should not de-sense itself or other neighbors in the presence of unwanted signals in typical usage scenarios which are dense in nature.
    3. The system should detect and avoid adverse signal artifacts and maintain reliable operation.
  2. Chip level innovations must be able to be deployed across all semiconductor technologies so that they can used ubiquitously in all areas of the RF signal chain.

It is in the RF signal chain that, if not designed with the most appropriate components, a signal can be subjected to unwanted effects of inferior product design. This would result in adverse signal fidelity as the signal is adjusted and overstress of parts if unwanted signal artifacts are allowed to propagate through the signal chain.

Renesas' RF team is meeting these challenges today with our comprehensive portfolio of Receive and Transit components and sub-systems. Renesas has developed circuit level RF innovations using its SmartSilicon™ approach to create unique products. These patented innovations such as Glitch Free, FlatNoise, Zero Distortion, K|z| Constant Impedance and KLin Constant Linearity technologies all serve to ensure that telecommunications equipment will operate with optimal performance. These advancements all come from a trusted supplier to the leading communications systems providers that has a proven track record with solutions deployed in networks globally and relied upon in turn by their customers to give them the connectivity they expect. Renesas innovations are also to be found at the heart of a broad array of other RF conditioning products serving such diverse markets as industrial control, test and measurement and public safety and we remain committed to continued innovation for the RF market.

Visit renesas.com/rf for details on Renesas' innovative RF portfolio including datasheets and samples.

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