Title: RF Coexistence – Challenges and Opportunities

Author: Samuel Sheng
Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder
Telegent Systems

Abstract: The explosion in wireless technologies over the past ten years has been nothing short of staggering. WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, ultrawideband, GPS, wireless HDMI, 60 GHz, and 2/3/4G cellular, along with mainstays such as FM radio and broadcast television, have become ubiquitous in consumer devices. The presence of multiple RF transceivers within a single device is now the norm, not the exception. Over the next ten years, the key challenge will shift from simply enabling wireless connectivity to enabling multiple wireless technologies to coexist at the same time in the same device, along with surviving the electromagnetic interference issues caused by the increasing complexity of such devices. While today's devices already feature several transceivers operating simultaneously, over the next ten years the problem will grow exponentially. It is projected that up to 10 RF transceivers may be active at any one time in a cellular handset, covering a frequency range anywhere from 100 MHz up to 3 GHz. This swath of spectrum is also broad enough that these radios will need to reject interference from a plethora of sources, such as microprocessors, switching regulators, LCD backlights, and touch panels. Likewise, the continuing march toward further integration will result in RF coexistence issues not only within devices, but within a single piece of silicon.
To effectively deal with this issue, many techniques will need to be developed and deployed to attack the problem in a disciplined fashion. Active interference mitigation, currently an area of research, will become a mainstay in devices and silicon. Time synchronization between radios of different standards, will become standard practice. Local oscillator and frequency planning between multiple radios will become a necessary design methodology. While currently uncommon, such techniques represent a major aspect in the development of RF technologies over the next decade.

Author bio: Dr. Sheng received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in electrical engineering, and
the BA degree in applied mathematics, all from the University of California, Berkeley. Over the past 15 years, he has been involved with architecting and designing leading-edge CMOS RF and DSP chips for silicon tuners, ADSL transceivers, and DVD RF/servo technologies.  In 2004, he co-founded Telegent Systems with the vision to develop complex next-generation RF SOC's such as single-chip televisions, and Dr. Sheng currently serves as Telegent's Chief
Technical Officer.
Prior to co-founding Telegent Systems, Dr. Sheng was at LSI Logic and responsible for architecting and implementing a series of silicon RF tuners for video-band applications, targeted for cable modems, analog/digital video over cable, and voice over IP as well as highly integrated DVD front-end technologies. Before LSI Logic, Dr. Sheng co-led the ADSL front-end (AFE) development effort at Datapath Systems, Inc.  Dr. Sheng was awarded Inventor of the Year at LSI Logic in 2002 and 2003 and was named the 2002 Distinguished
Engineer at LSI Logic. He has authored numerous papers and publications on various topics such as low-power CMOS RF wireless systems and low-power CMOS digital design. He has been awarded twelve patents in the areas of RF tuner and DSL modem design.

Title: 3G to 4G Transition – Challenges and Opportunities

Author: Ron Ruebusch
Vice President of R&D of the Wireless Semiconductor Division
Avago Technologies

Abstract: The cell phone industry is starting the transition from 3G to 4G networks.  In this process, the number of bands that 4G radios have to accommodate is growing rapidly.  As the suppliers of radio devices to the cell phone industry, the RFIC world is being challenged to provide a proliferation of new designs in a timely fashion.  Without unlimited budgets, managers are being compelled to become more efficient in their product development.  At the same time, as the spectrum gets more crowded emerging co-existence issues are becoming apparent which further complicate the RF front end.  Lastly, our customers want increased functionality in ever smaller form factors which also raises thermal challenges.  How are the successful players in this business going to successfully navigate this transition, what capabilities are required, and where are the opportunities for faster than market growth?

Author bio: Mr Ruebusch is the Vice President of R&D of the Wireless Semiconductor Division of Avago Technologies where he has been working for the last seven years.  In that capacity he manages all of the RFIC product development in Avago with a team of several hundred engineers in four major locations around the world.  He has over 35 years experience in the communications industry, 30 of which are in semiconductors and the last 20 of which have been in the RF segment.  His background includes a broad range of executive responsibilities from division general management, marketing, sales, and R&D.