Technological innovation promotes RF miniaturization and integration Zuolan Microelectronics debuts at ELEXCON 2022

From November 6th to 8th, ELEXCON 2022 Shenzhen International Electronics Exhibition and Embedded Systems Exhibition was held in Shenzhen. Hangzhou Zuolan Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Zuolan Microelectronics"), a leading domestic supplier of RF front-end devices Presented with the latest series of products, focusing on the characteristics of "miniaturization", "integration" and "modularization", it comprehensively demonstrates the advanced technology and latest achievements of its high-performance RF filters.

Photo album 1 ELEXCON 2022 scene and Zuolan Microelectronics booth style

Aiming at industrial technical difficulties and cultivating mid-to-high-end innovation in RF 

Data shows that China’s smartphone shipments in 2021 will reach 351 million units, a year-on-year increase of 13.9%. Among them, 5G smartphone shipments reached 266 million units, a year-on-year increase of 53.5%. The mobile phone market shipment analysis report for the third quarter of 2022 recently released by market research organization IDC shows that China’s smartphone market shipments fell by 11.9% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2022. However, thanks to the early release of Apple's iPhone 14 series this year and the return of Huawei's new Mate 50 series, the domestic smartphone market achieved a month-on-month growth of 6.0% in the third quarter, which shows that the market environment is gradually recovering.

Driven by 5G and domestic substitution, as well as client demands for new materials, high performance, ultra-thin and small size, domestic RF front-end technology is also rapidly changing and developing, and more and more local manufacturers are working hard to accumulate technology and processes. , trying to break the RF device market monopoly by foreign manufacturers.

Zuolan Microelectronics is positioned for the mid-to-high-end development of radio frequency. It already has a complete acoustic design, electromagnetic packaging design tool chain and forward R&D design capabilities. It has built an independently developed modular design platform and design database, allowing the R&D team to quickly iterate and iterate devices. We are developing new products and launching a variety of high-reliability, highly integrated, ultra-thin and small-sized mid-to-high-end RF devices and module products.

Picture Gallery 2 Thickness comparison and test curve comparison of ultra-thin filters and conventional filters

In the iterative process from 4G to 5G, the complexity of radio frequency devices gradually increases. In the design of RF filters, the main difficulty lies in how to reduce the size of the device and make the device thinner and smaller while meeting the requirements or even better in other performance points, such as power consumption, temperature drift, insertion loss, etc. . As shown in Figure 2 above, Zuolan Microelectronics' ultra-thin filters have obvious advantages in space size compared to conventional filters. Through test comparisons, the two are consistent in performance and will become the market's preferred target.

Through repeated iterations and continuous verification over the past few years, Zuolan Microelectronics has focused on market needs and hot spots, overcome technical problems, and launched RF filters and duplexers that can adapt to high-frequency communications, have good thermal stability, are miniaturized and integrated /Multiplexers and RF front-end module products comprehensively enhance the core capabilities of domestic RF manufacturers.

First of all, Zuolan Microelectronics has carried out a large amount of technical reserves and patent layout, and now owns more than 100 intellectual property rights, building a patent "moat". The company integrates patent information utilization and layout protection into R&D projects and new technology development, and fully absorbs international cutting-edge technologies to dynamically promote independent product innovation. At the same time, it combines with the risk management system to form an avoidance design with independent intellectual property rights and form its own Innovation achievements and intellectual property layout. After years of accumulation, the company has continuously extended and laid out its technical routes such as SAW/TCSAW/PESAW/PEBAW in terms of processes and materials, especially in terms of performance improvement, packaging technology, and volume reduction, and has made many breakthroughs and consolidated patent barriers. By optimizing the design of the SAW device, the size is reduced, and by optimizing the interdigital parameters, the lateral leakage mode is suppressed and the Q value technology is stabilized without increasing the process.

In addition, in terms of industry chain integration, Zuolan Microelectronics has tied up production capacity with well-known wafer foundries in the industry, and jointly built packaging and testing production lines with leading packaging and testing factories to ensure a stable supply of products and form a healthy production and market relationship; Zuolan Microelectronics has also established close cooperative relationships and procurement channels with domestic and foreign mainstream wafer material manufacturers to coordinate the optimization and iteration of design and process. Currently, Zuolan Microelectronics’ own back-end sealing and testing production line is completing batch delivery tasks non-stop. , filter and duplexer yields continue to improve.

With its left hand making technological and process breakthroughs and its right hand improving its industrial chain integration capabilities, Zuolan Microelectronics continues to break through market technical difficulties and improve product performance. At present, Zuolan Microelectronics has become one of the few local manufacturers in China that can develop and sell all types of RF filters (SAW/TC-SAW, PESAW, PEBAW, RF front-end modules), including B1/2/3/5 /7/8/20/66 and other 1.6mm*1.2mm small size, ultra-thin duplexers and innovatively designed filters applied to modules have rapidly promoted the miniaturization and integration of RF front-ends, and are highly regarded by the industry in the RF field. Attention.

Figure 3 Zuolan Microelectronics miniaturized duplexer and filter

A variety of ultra-thin and ultra-small new products are unveiled  to meet the needs of 5G miniaturization and modularization 

In the 5G era, the usage of radio frequency devices in mobile phones has increased significantly compared with 4G. Due to the space constraints of mobile phones, these radio frequency devices need to achieve large bandwidth, high out-of-band suppression, and low insertion loss while reducing the package size. At this ELEXCON exhibition, Zuolan Microelectronics brought a variety of new products, demonstrating the progress of filters, duplexers and diversity modules with different technical routes. The series of products all feature small size, high integration and strong reliability. and other features, which can fully meet the miniaturization and modularization requirements brought by 5G communications.

In terms of duplexer research and development, Zuolan Microelectronics’ 1612 size B5 band duplexer has entered the mass production preparation stage in the middle of this year, with an input power of 31dBm, a typical TX insertion loss of 1.5dB, and a typical RX insertion loss of 1.9dB. , the isolation performance is comparable to that of foreign brand manufacturers, and the out-of-band suppression also meets the needs of the end market. The B5, B12, and B20 small-size duplex products developed by Zuolan Microelectronics all have excellent performance such as low insertion loss and high power. Among them, the out-of-band suppression results of B12 small-size products are better than those of a major W international manufacturer.

Atlas 4 B12 and B20 small size duplexer test curves

Atlas 5 B66 small size duplexer curve

Zuolan Microelectronics has also deployed high-performance filters such as PESAW and PEBAW to reduce size and improve performance through differentiation in design technology. Zuolan Microelectronics 3.0 product PESAW high-performance filter has completed a complete R&D and supply chain. PESAW technology duplexer can meet the requirements of high Q value (>2000), low insertion loss (<1.5dB), high isolation ( >58dB) and high power (the power capacity is 2dBm higher than conventional) and other application scenarios with higher performance requirements. Among them, the B25 and B28F PESAW duplexers developed by Zuolan have made great progress and have the characteristics of high Q value, low loss, small temperature drift, and high power resistance.

Picture Gallery 6 Zuolan Microelectronics B25 and B28F PESAW duplex performance curves

In addition, Zuolan Microelectronics launched its independently developed 5G n78 PEBAW filter in May this year, which is suitable for both 5G small base stations and high-quality 5G mobile smart terminals. It has small size, low insertion loss, and good bandwidth. Features such as external suppression and high power. Its passband frequency is 3400-3600MHz, the maximum input power reaches 33dBm, and it supports operating temperature range of -40℃ to +95℃. Among them, the 1.4mm x 1.1mm package size is suitable for small base stations, while the smaller size 1.1mm x 0.9mm can be applied to 5G mobile smart terminals.

Last year, Zuolan Microelectronics has entered the modular "camp" and launched two diversity antenna RF link DiFEM module products that integrate RF switches and filters - SPDM001 and SPDM003: the former diversity receiving module is packaged in LGA. The package size is 3.2mm*3.0mm; the latter diversity receiving module also uses LGA packaging, with a package size of 3.7mm*3.2mm. Both products feature high integration, strong reliability, and support for CA carrier aggregation. Zuolan Microelectronics said that R&D cooperation on more mid-to-high-end module products such as LFEM and PAMiD has been put on the agenda to bring more products needed by the market. In the next few years, it will still be difficult for domestic radio frequency manufacturers to make breakthroughs in mid- and high-frequency PAMiD modules. The company has begun to start with the filters and duplexers required for PAMiD modules and gradually form more breakthroughs.