Just as micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) enable accelerometers and gyroscopes to be downsized to chip size, IBM is now employing MEMS technology from WiSpry to consolidate the dozens of radio frequency (RF) components needed for mobile handsets into a single chip, thereby lowering their cost, shrinking their size and extending their battery life. Look for smaller, cheaper, longer battery-lived cell phones by Christmas. R.C.J.
In the future, mobile handsets could shrink to minuscule sizes by virtue of the same micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology used to shrink accelerometers and gyroscopes to microchip sizes. Today, dozens of radio frequency (RF) components are needed to send and receive wireless signals from handsets, but, with tunable MEMS chips, the functions served by all those components can be shrunk down to a single RF MEMS chip. The tunable RF MEMS technology was invented and patented by startup WiSpry (Irvine, Calif.). By enlisting it, IBM Microelectronics has already fabricated sample MEMS chips that consolidate all the various RF components into a single tunable chip designed in standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS).
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