Silicon technologies for RF integrated circuits

The number of radio frequency applications is steadily increasing, with increasing demand for more bandwidth and higher data rates shifting the carrier frequencies to higher values. This trend is a consequence as well as the driver of the development of low-cost technologies for RFICs. Digital broadcasting, mobile radio, satellite transmission links for telephone, radio, and television, navigation systems, telematics, microwave landing systems, broadband multimedia distribution, optical broadband transmission systems with data rates up to the Tb/s range are examples for such applications.