5G Brings New Testing Challenges


As 5G nears commercial reality, makers of chips and systems that will support 5G will need to take on the standard burden of characterizing and testing their systems to ensure both performance and regulatory adherence. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) and beamforming capabilities present the biggest testing challenges. “5G is expected to have the extended coverage plus the bandwidth to harness ... » read more

Considerations For 5G Production Test


Like all technology advancements, bringing 5G to market requires an array of supporting tools to ensure the end products meet expectations. It will require significant performance advances in chip technology and manufacturing processes—all the while keeping price/performance at an economically viable level. Earlier this year, FormFactor’s Daniel Bock along with Jeff Damm outlined three c... » read more

Best Practices And Constraint Management Tools Speed RF Design For The IoT


By Jim Martens and David Zima The IoT has increased the demand for good radio frequency (RF) design practices from the mains, to wall outlet power, all the way to the antenna. With several IoT standards employed today, constraint management has become critical to ensuring that designs meet product performance and reliability. Even the simplest of IoT designs can benefit from constraint ma... » read more

RF And Microwave Solid-State Power Amplifiers Design Is A Speciality


In the world of RF and microwave engineering, the design and development of solid-state amplifiers is a specialty. It has always required many years of specialized engineering experience and a suitable collection of test and measurement equipment. While these will always be necessary, to be successful in the marketplace today, it is also essential to use a combination of specialized and general... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 16


GaN power modules Gallium-nitride (GaN) devices are emerging in several markets, such as power semiconductors and RF. GaN, a binary III-V compound, is a wide-bandgap technology, meaning it is faster and more efficient than silicon-based devices. GaN has 10 times the breakdown field strength with double the electron mobility than silicon. Generally, some GaN vendors don’t use a traditio... » read more

Full-Duplex Wireless Remains A Promise And A Challenge


Wireless bandwidth capacity could double if we could use full-duplex communication. Unfortunately, that’s not as easy as it sounds. People are working hard on it, but we’re mostly not there yet. Full duplex seems easy. In fact, so easy that it was possible with the first basic telephones. There was one loop between each phone and the central office, and that one loop carried conversation... » read more

The Ins And Outs Of Silicon Carbide


John Palmour, CTO at Cree, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about silicon carbide, how it compares to silicon, what's different from a design and packaging standpoint, and where it's being used. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: SiC is well-understood in power electronics and RF, but is the main advantage the ability to run devices hotter than silicon, or is ... » read more

Improving Wafer-Level S-Parameters Measurement Accuracy And Stability With Probe-Tip Power Calibration Up To 110 GHz For 5G Applications


Author: Choon Beng Sia, FormFactor Inc., Singapore Demands for mission critical wireless services such as autonomous driving and telehealth require higher data transfer rates and lower latencies. Such applications are now driving the use of radio frequencies (RF) at 28, 38, 60 and 73 GHz for the emerging 5G mobile communication systems. Waferlevel RF measurements of devices or circuits for 5... » read more

Parasitic Extraction of MIM/MOM Capacitors In Analog/RF Designs


The extensive use of MIM/MOM capacitors in analog/RF designs presents designers with extraction challenges that typically require multiple extraction techniques. The Calibre xACT platform offers analog/RF designers the fast performance of a rule-based extraction engine, and the capacity and performance of a field solver, to efficiently extract all parasitic components in a timely manner, with t... » read more

MOCVD Vendors Eye New Apps


Several equipment makers are developing or ramping up new metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) systems in the market, hoping to capture the next wave of growth applications in the arena. Competition is fierce among the various MOCVD equipment suppliers in the market, namely Aixtron, AMEC and Veeco. In addition, MOCVD equipment suppliers are looking for renewed growth in 2020, but b... » read more

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