"MEMS: Japan's DoCoMo tries to simplify handsets with RF MEMS"

DoCoMo revealed its work on simplifying mobile handsets with micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) at the recent MEMS Executive Congress. MEMS technology is critical to the success of future of wireless handsets, according to an executive with the wireless subsidiary of Japanese carrier NTT.


In a presentation during the MEMS Executive Congress (Sonoma, Calif.), Shoichi Narahashi, an executive with DoCoMo Research Laboratories, made the case for using MEMS RF switches to simplify the bill-of-materials for future mobile handsets. Narahashi said a single, reconfigurable power amplifier chip could replace the four separate amplifier chips required today. DoCoMo showed its prototype design for a quad-band mobile handset that uses two sets of MEMS RF switches: one set to reconfigure a power amplifier to transmit at one of four different frequencies and another that switched in different filters to reconfigure the RF front-end to receive at one of four different frequencies.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=221700062