19 January 2016

RFaxis launches family of sub-GHz CMOS RF front-end ICs for Internet of Things

Fabless semiconductor firm RFaxis Inc of Irvine, CA, USA, which designs RF semiconductors and embedded antenna solutions for wireless connectivity and cellular mobility, has unveiled a new family of ultra-miniature sub-GHz RF front-end IC (RFeIC) products for the high-growth Internet of Things (IoT)/M2M (machine-to-machine) market. The RFX15xx-series of products bolsters RFaxis' portfolio of RF front-end ICs for IoT with these additional high-power RF front-end options for sub-GHz applications.

The RFX15xx-series is a family of sub-GHz RFeICs in an ultra-miniature 2.5mm x 2.5mm QFN package (a smaller-size option to the existing RFX10xx-series of products). This series is intended for use in the 700/800/900MHz spectrum for high-power industrial, scientific & medical (ISM) frequency-band applications, including IEEE 802.15.4/4g, Wireless M-Bus, Smart Utility Network (SUN), IEEE 802.11ah Wi-Fi HaLow, and other low-power wide-area networking (LP-WAN) connectivity technologies such as LoRa, SigFox, Weightless, and Narrowband Cellular IoT (NB-CIoT).

The RFX15xx family consists of the RFX1510, RFX1530 and upcoming product derivatives (to be announced soon). The RFX1510 comes integrated with a high-power high-efficiency linear power amplifier (PA) with 27dBm saturated power, low-noise amplifier (LNA), and Transmit/Receive switching circuitry. Similarly, the RFX1530 comes integrated with a high-power high-efficiency linear PA with 30dBm saturated output power, LNA, and Transmit/Receive switch.

Both come with an integrated directional power detector circuitry, associated matching networks, RF decoupling and harmonic filters, all in single-die, single-chip bulk CMOS technology. They share a common pin-out in a 16-lead plastic QFN package. Like any of RFaxis' RFeICs, they are available in bare die form for ultra-compact designs such as system-in-package (SIP) modules. The devices are rated up to 125°C ambient temperature, as required by most wireless sensor networks applications at high temperature and in harsh outdoor environments.

As wireless connectivity for IoT and M2M continues to grow, the need for high-performance yet simple and cost-effective RF front-end solutions is becoming increasingly critical, says RFaxis. The total IoT/M2M wireless connectivity market for fixed, short-range radios as well as LP-WAN is estimated to be 20 billion connected devices by 2025 (according to Machina Research in May 2015).

"There is tremendous opportunity for RF front-ends in the high-growth smart home, smart office, smart building, smart city segments," reckons RFaxis' chief technical officer Oleksandr Gorbachov. "Our expanded IoT portfolio helps enable a wide range of ultra-compact, high-performance and cost-competitive designs," he adds. "We continue to gain strong traction among chipset partners and end-customers as they recognize performance and cost benefits of our innovative, single-die, single-chip RF front-end ICs in pure CMOS."

RFaxis is showcasing its new family of ultra-miniature RFeIC solutions for IoT at the 2016 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain (22-25 February) as well as at Embedded World 2016 in Nuremberg, Germany (23-25 February).

See related items:

RFaxis unveils new family of CMOS RF front-end ICs for Internet of Things

RFaxis expands portfolio of CMOS RF front-end ICs for Internet of Things applications

Tags: RFaxis CMOS

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