RF & Microwave

In a silicon-compatible parallel to fibre optics, MIT is using polymer-based ribbon waveguides to carry data between chips at 105Gbit/s – waveguide dimensions and material are chosen so that it propagates electromagnetic radiation between 200 and 335GHz, over 300mm of waveguide. To handle suitable sub-Thz frequencies, transmitter and receiver were made on a 130nm SiGe BiCMOS process using largely bipolar transistors in ...

Imec showed the first IEEE 802.15.4z impulse-radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) transmitter chip at ISSCC. The device strikes a balance between UWB’s accurate and secure ranging capabilities for indoor localization and the need for increased energy efficiency. Fabricated in 28nm CMOS (with an occupied core area of only 0.15mm²), the chip aims to enable the next generation of cost-effective, small form-factor UWB ...

Ericsson has launched three new radios in its Massive MIMO portfolio and expanded its RAN Compute portfolio with six RAN Compute products to accelerate 5G mid-band rollouts based on . Ericsson Silicon – the company’s SoC range. With new mid-band spectrum available, communications service providers can leverage their 5G spectral assets to roll out services quickly and efficiently to deliver ...

The Insight SiP ISP1907 series of Bluetooth Low Energy modules are based on Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52 SoC and uses Bluetooth 5.1’s direction finding for object and ID tracking. The modules are available now from Rutronik UK. The modules are claimed to have a long battery life and are suitable for use in professional and private IoT applications, from offices to ...

RF Solutions has created a single-channel remote control problem-solver that can switch up to 1kW of mains load. Called RF Ferret, it has a 21 x 76mm footprint and uses change-over relay as an output. There are, or will be, three RF Ferrets: Ferret-4R1 433MHz 6-24V in the pipeline Ferret-8R1 868MHz 6-24V Ferret-9R1 918MHz 12V in the pipeline All can be switched ...

U-blox has combined LPWA (low-power wide-area) connectivity and GNSS (satellite navigation) into a single 14 x 14 x 1.5mm package – half the size of the company’s functionally-similar Sara-R5 module (16 x 26 x 2.2mm). Called Alex-R5, it is based on u-blox’ secured UBX-R5 LTE-M and NB-IoT, plus its M8 GNSS chip. “By bringing all technology building blocks in-house and ...

A new whitepaper available on Electronics Weekly details energy harvesting for remote switches using Zigbee, for example for use in Smart Homes and Buildings. Download the whitepaper » Written by On Semiconductor, with an IoT focus, it covers how best to achieve the benefits of wireless, battery-free switches. It writes: “These devices offer unparalleled flexibility for deployment within buildings because they do not require ...

ST’s BPF8089-01SC6 RF front-end for GNSS integrates the impedance-matching and ESD protection circuitry typically implemented using discrete components. The device provides a 50Ω matched interface between the receiver’s antenna and low-noise amplifier (LNA), and is ready to plug-and-play with ST’s STA8089 and STA8090 LNAs. The chip typically replaces a matching network containing up to five capacitors, resistors, and inductors, as well ...

Smiths Interconnect has released a series of high frequency surface mount chip equalisers for controlling gain variation up to 40GHz with a maximum slope of 4dB. Called the CEX series, the parts combine thin-film and thick-film processing, offer multiple slope (1-4 dB) and band options. They come in standard and high-frequency versions. In the high-frequency types (see photo) Slope linearity of ...

Martin Woolley, Senior Developer Relations Manager, EMEA, at Bluetooth SIG, considers how Bluetooth technology operates to mitigate interference and increase reliability, with adaptive frequency hopping (AFH). Wireless communication systems usually employ radio as the underlying, physical basis for getting data from one device to another. Bluetooth itself is a radio communications technology. But there’s a problem. Radio is undeniably, unambiguously, ...