June 27, 2012 -- In a 3-year research collaboration, research organization imec and semiconductor provider Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. will work on reconfigurable radio IC design.

Murata will gain insight and better understanding in technology solutions and challenges for cognitive reconfigurable radio front-end. This will enable them to better assess the impact on antenna interface components. A central challenge in designing fully reconfigurable radios is minimizing the stringent antenna interface requirements and making the antenna filters reconfigurable.

Murata’s expertise on components and systems will fuel imec’s research towards fully reconfigurable radios.

The trend in wireless communication to have ubiquitous access to a multitude of services drives the development of reconfigurable radios in deep-submicron CMOS technology. Especially for emerging standards such as next-generation cellular (LTE Advanced) that use a broad range of operating frequencies and bandwidths, multi-mode capabilities are a must.

Imec’s R&D program on reconfigurable radios investigates reconfigurable radio-frequency (RF) solutions, high-speed/low-power analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and new approaches to digitize future RF architectures.

“Imec was chosen as R&D partner because of its long-standing expertise and excellent track-record in reconfigurable radio IC design,” said Norio Nakajima, VP, Module Business Unit at Murata.

“By combining fundamental rethinking of the circuit architectures and designs, and clever use of the benefits of deeply scaled digital CMOS technologies, we aim to develop reconfigurable radio transceivers competitive in terms of area, cost, performance and power consumption. The transceivers will cover all key broadband communication standards including LTE and LTE advanced, digital broadcasting and next-generation WiFi (802.11n/ac),” stated Liesbet Van der Perre, director of the green radio programs.

Imec performs world-leading research in nanoelectronics. Further information on imec can be found at www.imec.be.

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