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July 2008 Issue: Special Report
Looking Ahead: The Future of Commercial Wireless — RF Plug and Play
From: Vol. 51 | No. 7 | July 2008 | Page 34
by John Brewer and Peter Gammel, SiGe Semiconductor Inc.
The future of wireless communications is about its evolution from a technology to a resource—as common to our experience as water and electricity. In order to get there, though, the industry has to overcome some significant design challenges in mobile devices, many of which will be helped by advancements in semiconductor technology. Today’s consumer mobile devices can include as many as nine RF chains, and engineers are taxed to meet the size, power and coexistence requirements of next-generation form factors.
While many of us tend to focus on the evolution of networking technology standards and technologies as the driver of ubiquitous wireless (EDGE or 1xRTT? LTE or WiMAX? Satellite-based or terrestrial-based? Single-carrier or multi-carrier?), the reality is that the future of wireless communications is as much about the consumer device as it is about the network on which the device operates. The future of wireless communications is about how seamlessly wireless capability—and, most critically, RF technology—integrates into the various devices, vehicles, tools and spaces defining our daily lives. In addition, next-generation designs must be able to keep up with changing usage models. For instance, few predicted the explosive growth of text messaging, and dramatic improvements in RF and SoC capability and power consumption have enabled a richer mobile Internet browsing experience. Many are now focused on adding location-based services to mobile handsets, and the mobile device needs to have the required RF circuitry to handle all of these diverse signal chains.
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