Renesas Electronics' new technology enables a smaller installation area and better power efficiency. Two 2.4GHz rf transceiver technologies supporting the low power Bluetooth NFC standard are developed.
In addition to being compact, low-cost, and energy efficient, iot devices must also provide flexible support for Bluetooth LE, regardless of its implementation format. The company has developed two new technologies to meet these needs: one is matching circuit technology covering a wide impedance range, allowing integrated circuits to match various antenna and plate impedances without external impedance matching circuits; And a signal correction technique for locally generated reference signals using a small circuit to self-correct inconsistencies and changes in surrounding conditions in circuit elements without calibration.
The company has demonstrated the effectiveness of these technologies on a prototype Bluetooth LE RF transceiver circuit built using a 22-nm CMOS process. With these new technologies, it reduced the circuit area, including the power supply, to 0.84mm2, the smallest of its kind in the world.
This was achieved by modifying the receiver architecture to reduce the number of inductors and enhance features, including low current baseband amplifiers with small mounting areas and efficient Class D amplifiers. They provide first-class power efficiency, consuming 3.6mW and 4.1mW during reception and transmission, respectively. These advances enable smaller sizes, lower board costs, and lower power consumption, while simplifying the board design process.
These technologies are suitable for different RF transceivers and low power Bluetooth, and Renesas Electronics is currently working on practical applications of these technologies.
