Plextek RFI, a UK design house specializing in microwave and millimetre-wave IC design, has announced that it has developed a multi-chip module (MCM) to cover the recently-designated European ‘Pioneer Band’ for millimetre-wave (mmWave) 5G around 26 GHz. The development of the Front-End Module (FEM) was carried out in collaboration with Filtronic Broadband.
The band 24.25 to 27.5GHz was designated at the end of last year by the EU Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) as the preferred band, or ‘Pioneer Band’, for mmWave 5G. Plextek RFI identified early on that there was a lack of components available at this frequency, and that led them to define this joint FEM development project.
The FEM consists of a GaAs low-noise amplifier (LNA), power amplifier (PA) and transmit/receive switch housed in a custom laminate surface-mount (SMT) package measuring 10 mm x 10 mm. The receive path gain is 20 dB across the full band, with a noise figure of 3.5 dB. Transmit path gain is 19 dB, and the output referred third order intermodulation (IP3) is +36 dBm. Low-loss RF filtering has been integrated into the package structure, with a band-pass filter after the LNA and a harmonic rejection filter after the PA. Insertion loss figures are 0.7 dB for the band-pass filter and 0.2 dB for the harmonic rejection filter.
For more information about Plextek RFI’s work on developing 5G MMIC and components, click here.
