Combined chips to meet the technical challenges of wireless convergence
Given the increasing demand for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other connection technologies for mobile devices, manufacturers are seeking ways to add these features to smaller and smaller products. However, adding multiple wireless technologies to mobile phones and other compact devices can lead to several design challenges: higher cost, shorter battery life, more space, and more wireless interference.
Just as various wireless technologies are converging to meet new consumer demands and create new usage models, chip companies are also integrating these wireless technologies at the chip level to meet the technical challenges brought about by wireless convergence. Instead of providing several discrete components, chip manufacturers now integrate multiple wireless technologies (such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM radio, and GPS) onto a single chip. This "combined chip" has great advantages to overcome the challenge of designing small mobile devices with the latest connectivity. Because of these advantages, IDC expects that by 2012, in all wireless connectivity solutions delivered for mobile phones, the combined chip will account for nearly 2/3, which shows the advantages of this integration method.
Manufacturers evaluating discrete wireless solutions and combination chips must consider the following design guidelines:
performance
In order to compete in the brutal mobile phone market, manufacturers have been working hard to provide the latest features and a better user experience. Functionality and user experience are the keys to attracting new customers and maintaining brand loyalty. If a wireless function does not work as expected, consumers will become frustrated and may stop using the function altogether, or even worse-switch to another brand of mobile phone.
When adding multiple wireless technologies to mobile phones, manufacturers will not reluctantly accept lower-than-expected performance. The new equipment must perform as well or better than previous generations. Because Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies are constantly evolving, it is a difficult task to integrate the most advanced functions into a combination chip. Therefore, mobile phone manufacturers must look for chip manufacturers with the following characteristics: not only have a comprehensive wireless product line, but also have outstanding success in integrating different technologies for mobile design.
Coexistence and interference:
To ensure that Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices provide the best possible user experience, the coexistence of multiple wireless technologies is also crucial. Because both technologies use the 2.4GHz band, simultaneous transmissions can severely degrade performance and invalidate both wireless technologies. Although Bluetooth uses the adaptive frequency hopping (AFH) method to mitigate interference in the 2.4 GHz band, when the RF isolation between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless units is very low, as in the case of handheld devices, adaptive hopping Frequency is not enough.
As you can imagine, when these two wireless technologies are implemented on the same chip, the problem of coexistence is more serious. In order to mitigate the interference caused by too close distance, most chip manufacturers use standard 3-wire coexistence interface between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chips. However, leading vendors like Broadcom have developed unique algorithms and hardware mechanisms that can intelligently manage the 2.4GHz band. This advanced method is used to synchronize transmissions, avoid collisions, and find the cleanest channels and time slots for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. As a result, the performance of today's combined chips is higher than discrete solutions.
Component size and cost
As mobile designs become smaller and cheaper, the size and cost of each component becomes a key factor. Not only are wireless combo chips smaller than multiple independent chips, but they also require fewer external components to form a system. For example, discrete Wi-Fi and Bluetooth systems generally require about 200 components, including power amplifiers (PA), balanced converters (Balun), low noise amplifiers (LNA), and so on. By sharing multiple repeating components between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi systems and integrating other components onto the chip, the combined solution can reduce the number of components to 40.
When you draw these components on a circuit board layout, the discrete solution takes up approximately 200mm2 of board area, while the combined chip is only 75mm2. In addition to saving board space, fewer components obviously reduce the manufacturer's bill of materials. Existing semiconductor suppliers have integrated high-power CMOS power amplifiers on the combined chip, which not only eliminates the cost of external power amplifiers, but also does not sacrifice system performance. Innovations like this will continue to enable mobile phone manufacturers to more economically apply combination chips to multiple types of mobile phones.
Antenna placement
Along with multiple wireless technologies are multiple antennas. In addition to one or more cellular antennas, today's more advanced mobile phones must also contain antennas for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, FM, and GPS, respectively. This not only increases the system cost, but also poses a considerable challenge to the circuit board layout. Some combo chips can help alleviate these challenges by sharing antenna systems with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless technologies.
Power management:
The more components on the circuit board, the more power is consumed and the more heat is generated. All these factors will affect battery life. We have already mentioned that the combination chip requires fewer components, which reduces the overall power consumption. However, more importantly, the process technology used by chip manufacturers when designing combined chips. Leading manufacturers are using the 65nm process node, which can achieve higher efficiency, tighter chip integration and lower power consumption. As a result, manufacturers can add Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities to devices without worrying about unacceptable battery life.
In order to further meet the complex power requirements of mobile phones and other portable devices, some combination chips integrate a power management unit (PMU). This type of power management unit can monitor usage patterns and optimize system operation to maximize battery life. For example, smart "sleep" and "wake up" modes can power off components, minimizing wasted power when the device is not in use. Some power management units have a comprehensive set of software and device drivers to be able to program the output voltage of the integrated linear and switching regulators, or to implement start-up sequencing, so that the power supply and integrated components can be generated quickly and efficiently Associated.
to sum up
Driven by the merger of mobile device functions, combination chips have become the next big wave of semiconductor design. Such highly integrated solutions have lower power consumption, smaller footprint, more economical design options, and higher performance than discrete wireless solutions, making them ideal for portable devices such as mobile phones. As these mobile devices become more media-centric, consumers need more connectivity to enable them to acquire, enjoy, and share digital media content between devices. To meet this demand, equipment manufacturers hope that leading chip manufacturers will provide combined solutions that reflect this new reality.
Figure: One of BROADCOM's latest combination chips, which integrates 802.11N WI-FI, Bluetooth and FM RADIO. In addition, the CMOS power amplifier is uniquely integrated.
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