Solving challenges of 6G RF front-end design with RF DTCs

Nanusens has used its pioneering MEMS-within-CMOS technology to create a novel solution to the challenge of creating better RF front ends for 6G.

Josep Montanyà, Nanusens’ CEO, explained, “This builds on and extends the company’s work of using its unique technology to enable the upper 5G bands to be used cost-effectively. We have test chips for this with customers, and they are impressed with their performance and actually advised us to use this technology to also create solutions for 6G as the industry really has a challenge.“

The issue is that 6G needs to handle many more and possibly higher frequencies than 5G. To do this, additional antennas need to be integrated into the phone to handle more bands. However, because they have to be smaller to fit more of them inside the phone, their efficiency decreases. To get the best possible performance from each antenna, each needs to be tuned to reconfigure to different bands and avoid mismatch with the power amplifier. This is currently done using tunable capacitors.

The company has used its patented, silicon-proven technology of building MEMS structures using standard CMOS technologies to create numerous digitally tunable, nanoscale capacitors within the CMOS layers of a chip along with the control circuitry at the same time. This single-chip, integrated solution is smaller than rival solutions and provides much better performance due to its much better linearity, which means there is virtually zero distortion. Also, as the nano-capacitors are more power efficient, talk times are up to 30% better, thus solving the current issue of decreased efficiency.

These RF DTCs also solve the issue of current antenna solutions becoming increasingly power-hungry in the higher frequency bands. The key is the very high Q factor of above 100 at 1GHz, and, importantly, the Q factor continues to be high up to the higher bands to keep power losses very low, where the Q factor of rivals drops significantly. The practical result is an increase in range by around 14% or more, which improves user experience as there are fewer dropped calls or poor reception areas.

Dr Marc Llamas, Nanusens’ CTO, said, “Our unique solution for the 5G and 6G RF Front End is exciting the major RF corporations that we have shown it to who need a better solution. We believe that this is RF Front End solution that they have been looking for to enable the 6G market to really take off. Not only for phones but also for other applications in industry and automotive due to its much lower latencies and data rates that are 50 times better than 5G at 1000 gigabits per second. That is a huge potential 6G market that is measured in the hundreds of millions of new devices a year. driven by the rapidly growing needs of data-intensive applications such as AI, virtual reality, augmented reality and IoT. Our unique technology of just using standard CMOS techniques in any CMOS fab means that we can produce in virtually unlimited volumes to meet this demand.”