CMOS Grows on Mobile-Phone Transceivers

CMOS process technology is enjoying increasing use in Radio Frequency (RF) transceiver chips of mobile phones and by 2009 will be employed in 40% of wireless handsets shipped, iSuppli Corp. predicts.

Mobile phones presently make use of RF transceiver chips based on relatively expensive processes, with Silicon Germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS dominating the market and Silicon BiCMOS (Si)-BiCMOS retaining a small share of sales. However, CMOS processes technology is beginning to make inroads into the market.

CMOS, which today is used to manufacture the vast majority of semiconductors worldwide, has the advantage of lower cost compared to SiGe-BiCMOS and Si-BiCMOS. Furthermore, since CMOS is used to make the baseband functions in mobile phones, implementing the RF function in CMOS enables greater integration of baseband and RF functions. Lower part costs combined with higher integration will allow RF CMOS to help drive down mobile-phone Average Selling Prices (ASPs) in the coming years, iSuppli predicts.

RF CMOS started its penetration with low-end GSM phones, and has worked its way into high-end GSM handsets.

Silicon Laboratories was the first to release an RF CMOS transceiver for GSM in 2001. However, other companies since have released RF CMOS products, including Berkana Wireless, Infineon and Qualcomm. With the support of Qualcomm, RR CMOS is expected to make major inroads into the CDMA market.

Penetration of RF CMOS transceivers mobile phones is expected to rise to 40% by 2009, up from just 13% in 2004, iSuppli predicts. The figure below and attached presents iSuppli's percentage forecast of RF transceiver shipments broken down by process technology.

The overall market for RF components used in mobile handsets is expected to grow to $7 billion in 2009, up from $6.6 billion in 2004, iSuppli predicts. Other factors driving down phone costs and increasing their integration include the rising use of Zero IF (ZIF) architectures, Power Amplifier Modules (PAMs) and Antenna Switch Modules (ASMs), according to iSuppli."

Posted to the site on 8th September 2005