Silicon chip design to speed rollout and lower cost of wireless networks

Researchers at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs have created the first all-silicon chips for the part of wireless networks that receives radio signals from mobile handsets.

The development could reduce the size and cost of wireless base stations and also could provide network operators with more installation options.

Today's radio receiver in base stations contains 10 to 20 chips comprised of gallium arsenide, which is a substantially more costly semiconducting material than silicon, yet is needed to satisfy the high-performance requirements of a wireless network.

For instance, the radio receiver must handle many weak signals simultaneously, then amplify and filter them before further signal processing occurs.

"Only recently have circuit designers made silicon chips for radios that rival the performance of gallium arsenide," Bell Labs researcher Jenshan Lin said.

A radio receiver has been developed that is comprised of only three silicon chips - roughly the size of a five cent piece - which is 100 times smaller than the gallium arsenide-based radio.

The all-silicon fabrication approach also may lead to the combination of a base-station radio receiver and digital signal processor on a single chip.

Item provided courtesy of Industry Search