Brad Shaffer, senior analyst and Wayne Lam, principal analyst at IHS Technology, has revealed some suggestions to RF front-end makers to support global telecom operators to improve data network efficiency.

RF front-end, the components between the transceiver and the antennae in smartphones, enables the mobility of a smartphone.

Growth in RF content will continue to provide a significant opportunity to RF component suppliers as LTE continues to advance and the market moves toward the 5G era.

Carrier aggregation, which can push data rates even higher, is the combining of separate RF bands to create wider bandwidths and faster download and upload speeds for devices. The latest available modems are Cat-16 LTE and are capable of downlink data rates of around 1 Gbps. Cat-18 devices will support faster data rates of 1.2 Gbps next year.
As LTE Advanced progresses into LTE-Advanced Pro, the number of carrier aggregation combinations is growing. There will be more than 1,000 band combinations in two years as compared with 200 CA combinations in 2015.

A decade ago smartphones only had to support around five frequency bands. With LTE, there are around 50 frequency bands, before even accounting for the possible carrier aggregation combinations.

Most smartphones released today have at least 2 to 4 variants to address all the major networks across the globe.

Smartphones have limited space for RF components and in order to support a growing number of frequency bands, these components must integrate with one another into modules. Components like power amplifiers (PA) must not only support a set of frequency bands but multiple modes as well. These multi-mode, multi-band PA are surrounded by other components such as RF switches, duplexers, and filters to create integrated front-end modules.

Not all OEMs will use the same approach toward RF component integration, depending on the target markets for a smartphone; they may choose to utilize a mix of discrete and integrated RFFE products.

With current premium tier smartphones supporting so many bands and modes, the need for RF suppliers to have system level expertise has never been greater. The most successful RF suppliers will be those which have diverse product portfolios with system level co-design capabilities ranging from the digital baseband to the antennae.

OEMs must address the needs of mobile network operators to make their devices interact with the network in a manner as efficient as possible. Very few suppliers have the ability to accommodate the entire RF front-end function with their product portfolios, which is a primary reason that only a few vendors dominate the mobile handset RF component market.

The current, integrated RF front-end designs seen in the smartphone market will become foundational during the smartphone’s transition to supporting 5G technologies over the next few years.

RFFE will have to support an even wider set of frequency bands. The range of RF frequency will be expanding from 700MHz-5GHz to 600MHz-60GHz; although higher frequencies will be focused less on mobility.

There will also be higher orders of modulation and more air interface technologies which will add to RF complexity. The performance challenges which will surely be brought by 5G can’t be solved by component integration alone and will need to be addressed on a system level as well as within the RFFE.