Renesas Electronic Corp. is developing two 2.4 GHz RF transceiver technologies that will support the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) low-power, near-field communication standard.
Renesas said the two new technologies address two requirements for internet of things (IoT) devices including:
- Matching circuit technology to cover a wide impedance range so that the IC matches a variety of antenna and board impedances without an external impedance-matching circuit.
- A signal correction technology for locally generated reference signals that use a small circuit to self-correct inconsistencies in the circuit elements and variations in surrounding conditions without calibration.
The matching circuit technology allows compact and low-cost BLE products that require no external inductors or capacitors for switching between reception and transmission or impedance matching.
The technology consists of two inductors and four variable capacitors. The transmitter-side inductor and receiver-side inductor used in the matching circuit are configured in a concentric arrangement and their mutual induction is employed to reduce signal loss and cut parasitic capacitance.
The reference signal self-correction circuit technology eliminates the need for calibration circuit phase correction. The signal is used to convert gigahertz-band wireless signals to low-frequency baseband signals. The technology includes a self-IQ-phase correction circuit that uses reference signals of four different phases to correct each other by allowing the phase differences to cancel each other out. This circuit is much smaller and can be implemented at about one-twelfth the size of a conventional calibration circuit.
Renesas is currently working on practical applications for these technologies and how they can be applicable to different types of RF transceivers as well as BLE.
