Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) vendor Cavendish Kinetics has announced that its SmarTune radio frequency (RF) antenna tuners have been included in 40 different smartphones from 10 different manufacturers including the Samsung Galaxy A8.
While simple silicon-on-insulator (SOI) switches in many smartphones are popular, they are increasingly unable to meet RF performance requirements, Cavendish says. MEMS technology can improve performance and have greater reliability compared to these switches, realizing an uptick in the adoption of RF MEMS in smartphones, the San Jose, California-based company says.
Cavendish plans to release its second generation RF MEMS products in the second quarter of 2017 and the company claims it will include the first viable RF MEMS Switch for cellular smartphone and IoT radio applications.
Recently, SmarTune received the Best Mobile Chip of 2016 from market research firm The Linley Group, joining Intel, Qualcomm, Marvell and Synopsis who received awards in different categories.
