6.1 A Low-Power and Low-Cost 14nm FinFET RFIC Supporting Legacy Cellular and 5G FR1
Jongsoo Lee, Byoungjoong Kang, Seongwon Joo, Seokwon Lee, Joongho Lee, Seunghoon Kang, Ikkyun Jo, S. Ahn Seungyoung Ahn, Jaeseung Lee, Jeong‐Yeol Bae, Won Il Ko, Wonjun Jung, Sangho Lee, Sang-Sung Lee, Euiyoung Park, Sungjun Lee, Jeongkyun Woo, Jaehoon Lee, Yanghoon Lee, Kyungmin Lee, Jongwoo Lee, Thomas Byunghak Cho, Inyup Kang
Abstract
To be competitive in a mobile market, current consumption and bill-of-material (BOM) cost have to be minimized. Current reduction techniques have been actively investigated as they become a key factor to increase battery lifetime. To reduce BOM cost, external low-noise amplifier (eLNA) usage and discrete passive components have to be minimized with simple interfaces, which influences the number of PCB Iayers and stacks. This work is oriented to provide a low-power and low-cost cellular RF transceiver that supports 2G, 3G, and 4G as well as new-radio (NR) frequency range1 (FR1) with a dual-mode Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) implemented in a 14nm FinFET CMOS technology. A fully digital interface is implemented to transfer data between an RFIC and a modem for enhanced routability as demonstrated in Fig. 6.1.1.