Renesas and IMEC to research 45nm rf transceivers
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Renesas has entered into a strategic collaboration with IMEC to research 45nm rf transceivers targeting Gbit/s cognitive radios. As part of the agreement, Renesas has joined IMEC’s software defined radio (SDR) front end program, which is investigating reconfigurable rf solutions, high speed/low power a/d converters and new approaches to future rf architectures.
“We are excited that one of the world’s leading semiconductor companies has joined our SDR front end program,” said Rudy Lauwereins, IMEC’s vp Nomadic Embedded Systems. “This proves the importance of our recent results on SDR and a/d converters and reflects the value IMEC brings to its industry partners in this rf research program.”
“The ability to develop an innovative rf architecture with scaled down cmos technology and circuit technologies in transceiver products supporting next generation cellular standards such as 3GPP-LTE and 4G is one of the key differentiators for our products,” said Masao Nakaya, board director and executive general manager of LSI product technology unit at Renesas.
The research will build on IMEC’s 130nm rf transceiver results, published at ISSCC 2007, which produced the first prototype of a true SDR transceiver ic. It will also build on IMEC’s a/d conversion technology, outlined at ISSCC 2008, which achieved 40Msample/s, 9bit, 54fJ/conversion step.
