New Architecture Elements for 5G RF Front End Modules

The global smartphone shipments has reached more than 1.4 billion units each year and is one of the main driving engine behind semiconductor industry. The transition from 3G/4G to 5G is expected to bring higher data rates, low latency and new user applications in areas such as traffic safety, control and industrial application. These new applications will require faster multi-connectivity for smartphones and other 5G wireless devices. The progress in power computing for 4G/5G modems and applications processors has been possible due to lower features CMOS nodes such as 7nm/14nm FinFET and the use of ARM processor architectures. These provide also digital signal processing and digital calibration for RF circuitry. 5G will require more RF bandwidth and due to this reason many RF, analogue, switch and acoustic filter blocks are integrated with other components in multiple RF front end modules. This paper presents RF front end architectures for LTE 5G with new elements which will provide faster access and low latency. Circuit details and measurements are also presented for 5G n7/n41 bands.