Smarter ICs

This article presented the possibilities of making microwave and mm-wave ICs more intelligent through a combination of established Si/SiGe BiCMOS technologies, which allow for complex ICs combining a multitude of high-speed analog and digital functions, and RFMEMS processing tightly integrated with the baseline BiCMOS technology. The addition of RFMEMS switches and integrated antennas enhanced by micromachining especially pays off at millimeter waves, where chip-to-board interconnects become increasingly cumbersome, and RFMEMS reconfiguration switches offer unparalleled low loss, high isolation, and high linearity.

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