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IMEC, Renesas research reconfigurable RF transceivers

To perform research on 45-nm RF transceivers targeting 1-Gbps cognitive radios, semiconductor supplier Renesas Technology Corp has entered a strategic research collaboration with the IMEC (Interuniver sity Microelectronics Center) nanoelectronics and nanotechnology research center’s SDR (software-defined-radio)-frontend program. This research includes reconfigurable RF products; high-speed, low-power ADCs; and new approaches to digitizing future RF architectures. To bolster development of future mobile-electronics products, Renesas will place researchers onsite at IMEC.

IMEC’s SDR-front-end program targets the development of a new generation of cost-, performance-, and power-competitive reconfi gurable radios in 45-nm-digital-CMOS technology, which will contain a programmable center frequency of 100 MHz to 6 GHz and programmable bandwidth of 100 kHz to 40 MHz to cover key communication standards, with a fi gure- of-merit comparable to state-of-the-art single- mode transceivers. The IMEC research program builds on its previous 130-nm RF-transceiver results, including a prototype of a true SDR-transceiver IC. The collaborators will also develop further evolutions of IMEC’s ADCs.

“The ability to develop an innovative RF architecture with scaled-down CMOS technology and circuit technologies in transceiver products supporting next-generation cellular standards, such as 3GPP-LTE and 4G, is one of the key differentiators for our products that are superior in cost advantages, performance, and power,” says Masao Nakaya, board director and executive general manager of the LSI (large-scale-integration)-product technology unit at Renesas.

Renesas, , www.renesas.com.
Interuniversity MicroelectronicsCenter, , www.imec.be.