Compared to 14nm RF, the 8nm RF chip architecture is claimed to offer up to a 35% increase in power efficiency
Samsung Electronics develops 8nm RF process technology to bolster 5G communications chip solutions. (Credit: SAMSUNG)
Samsung Electronics has introduced the 8nm RF process technology, the company’s newest radio frequency (RF) solution based on 8-nanometer (nm) process, for supporting 5G sub-6GHz/mm Wave.
The South Korean electronics firm said that the new foundry technology has been designed to offer a ‘one chip solution,’ particularly for 5G communications by supporting multi-channel and multi-antenna chip designs.
Its 8nm RF process technology adds to a portfolio of RF-related solutions, which include 28nm- and 14nm-based RF.
Samsung Electronics foundry technology development team master Hyung Jin Lee said: “Through excellence in innovation and process manufacturing, we’ve reinforced our next-generation wireless communication offerings.
“As 5G mmWave expands, Samsung’s 8nm RF will be a great solution for customers looking for long battery life and excellent signal quality on compact mobile devices.”
The company said that it has developed an exclusive architecture called RFextremeFET (RFeFET) for its 8nm RF process technology. The architecture has been designed to overcome the challenges associated with scaling on analog/RF performance.
According to Samsung Electronics, RFeFET can considerably enhance RF characteristics while consuming less power.
Compared to 14nm RF, the company said that its RFeFET architecture supplements the digital power-performance-area (PPA) scaling. At the same time, it restores the analog/RF scaling in order to enable high-performance 5G platforms, said the South Korean firm.
Furthermore, the company stated that its process optimisation maximizes channel mobility and at the same time, minimises parasitics.
Additionally, the number of transistors of RF chips and the area of analog/RF blocks can be decreased as the performance of RFeFET is greatly improved, said the company.
When compared to 14nm RF, the 8nm RF process technology from Samsung Electronics is claimed to offer an increase of up to 35% in power efficiency. On the other hand, the RFeFET architecture can help deliver a 35% reduction in the RF chip area, said the company.
Earlier this year, Samsung Electronics had entered into a partnership with data infrastructure technology provider Marvell for developing a new system-on-a-chip (SoC) for boosting the performance of 5G networks.