Reconfigurable RF Front End Section of Mobile Paras Chawla*, Nitin Saluja*, Kapil Chawla**, Neeraj Gupta**, Archana Chhikara**, Khushdeep Kaur**, Shashi kant Suman**, *Thapar University, Patiala(India),**KITM, Kurukshetra(India) Address: Deptt. of ECE, Kurukshetra Institute of Technology & Management(KITM), Kurukshetra-136119(Haryana), INDIA Contact: +91-9896180750,9991168313, 8930311245 Email: paras.chawla@kitm.in, kapil.chawla227@gmail.com, ece2907207@gmail.com ABSTRACT This paper basically represents the next generation front end mobile terminals, which could be reconfigured using MEMS technology. Besides the task of reconfigurable antenna, multiband power amplifiers, duplexer switch there is also the need of low noise amplifier, down/up converters which are to be integrated on the one chip transceiver (TRX). One also requires other component such as RF MEMS switch which diploids the repeatability of the other components which are being repeatedly used in the working of various bands. The design of a mobile device equipped with compact size and multiband internal circuit elements are the challenges which the industry is facing in today’s world. Another major part which we will be discussing is the integration of MEMS technology with the CMOS based devices using ASIMPS (Application specific MEMS process). Keywords- RF front end, Reconfigurable Antenna, RF MEMS, Multiband, Next generation 1. INTRODUCTION The design of reconfigurable RF front end of mobile terminal using RF MEMS for next-generation communication applications has become a hot research topic in the past few years. The need for a single device to access various services, like DCS, PCS, GSM, EGSM, CDMA, WCDMA, GPS, Wi-Fi, Wi-MAX, UMTS. Besides the design of reconfigurable antenna, multiband power amplifiers, duplexer switch there is a need of LNA and down/up converters that are to be integrated into 1-chip transceiver (TRX). There is also a need to develop a reconfigurable switch which will avoid the use of repeatability of components required for different bands. [1] RF MEMS switches have displayed excellent RF characteristics, including lower insertion loss, higher isolation, zero power consumption, small size and weight and very low inter modulation distortion, and long battery life. The power amplifier is a key component in RF circuits and must achieve a high level of operating efficiency in order to maximize the battery life and minimize the size and cost of the terminals. Film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) filters and duplexers are receiving increasing attentions in RF systems due to the advantages of having high power handling capability, high Q- factors, good thermal stability, require a small volume and are relatively cheap. Integration of MEMS technology with various circuit elements such as CMOS devices is possible with the help of ASIMPS (Application Specific MEMS Processes). In ASIMPS, microstructures are made from conventional CMOS followed by two maskless post-CMOS process steps. The top metal layer acts as a mask & protects the CMOS. The result is fine line, fine gap microstructures with low parasitic capacitance, multiple isolated conductors per structure, and built-in piezoresistors. 2. Overview of different section of RF Front mobile terminal 2.1 Multiband Power Amplifier (PA) The CMOS technology based fabricated reconfigurable power amplifier has multi stages and operates in multibands with sufficient gain, power added efficiency at the adjustable supply voltage of 3.5V to 5V in each operating bands, although work is going on reduce the size of the circuit to make it practically possible. The circuit size is reduced but at high frequencies the gain of NSTI-Nanotech 2011, www.nsti.org, ISBN 978-1-4398-7139-3 Vol. 2, 2011 374