Renesas, imec announce SAWless reconfigurable transceiver
In what is described as a major breakthrough in fully reconfigurable radios, Renesas Electronics and imec have launched a transceiver which they claim eliminates the need for surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters.
The device is part of imec's Scaldio reconfigurable radio programme and was unveiled at the International Solid State Circuit Conference yesterday. According to imec, the highly linear reconfigurable transceiver is compatible with multiple wireless standards, including the fourth generation mobile broadband standard 3GPP-LTE. The device also has a 3dB noise figure and combines adaptive out of band noise filtering with voltage sampling up conversion to achieve RX band noise down to -162dBc/Hz.
"This highly programmable technology is suitable for mobile handsets and battery powered wireless connectivity devices, as well as base stations for smart cells," said Liesbet Van der Perre, director of green radio programmes at imec. "Its high linearity enables more out of band blocker interference in the rf receiver, avoiding the need for SAW filters and consequently enabling a simplified antenna interface."
