IMEC announces reconfigurable transceiver

The single chip configurable transceiver has been developed to address the trend in wireless communication for terminals to give users ubiquitous access to a multitude of services. This, says IMEC, drives the development of reconfigurable radios in deep submicron cmos. According to IMEC, the flexible receiver, which includes an analogue to digital converter, is software configurable across all channels in the frequency bands between 100MHz and 6GHz. Its properties such as the rf carrier frequency, channel bandwidth, noise figure, linearity and filter characteristics can be adapted to the requirements of the communication standard that is used. The transceiver is said to combine high sensitivities with low phase noise and high linearity, while these can be traded for lower power consumption depending on the needs of a particular standard. The transmitter reaches low out of band noise, targeting SAW less 3GPP LTE operation and integrates this programmability in a chip area of 5mm². Liesbet Van der Perre, director, green radios programme at IMEC, said: "We are excited that together with our reconfigurable radio programme partners Renesas and M4S, we have reached this great achievement with the conception of a low cost, low power reconfigurable transceiver for next generation mobile broadband communications. We are looking forward to continue the collaboration towards next generation wireless."