RF-system-on-package (SOP) for wireless communications

Anew industrial revolution, often called the “third wave” or information technology (IT), is in the making. The products of this revolution will require entirely different systems hardware technologies: those with multifunctions, such as digital, analog, RF, and optical circuitries. RF and microwave design and packaging have been established as key technologies of this revolution. The demand for increasingly higher rates of data, voice, and video drives RF technology to ever higher frequencies where bandwidth for channel capacity is easy to find. Such emerging high-performance applications as personal communication networks, wireless local-area networks (WLAN), and RF-optical networks have defined a trend toward more flexible and reconfigurable systems. They impose very stringent specifications never before reached in term of low noise, high linearity, low power consumption, small size and weight, and low cost. The RF front-end module is the foundation of these systems, and its integration poses a great challenge. Microelectronics technology, since the invention of the transistor, has revolutionized many aspects of electronic products. This integration and cost path has led the microelectronics industry to believe that this kind of progress can go on forever, leading to so-called “system-on-chip” (SOC) for all applications. But it is becoming clear that the production of a complete solution for the new wireless communication front-end is still a dream. When you consider the characteristics of an RF front-end module  high performance up to 100-GHz operating frequency  a large number of high-performance discrete passive components  design flexibility