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info@onscale.com www.onscale.com
Requirements for 5G RF lter applicaons will include complex mulplexing, increasing integraon,
addional lters, and the capability to handle much higher frequencies. Overall, the system architecture
for 5G RFFEs will be extremely complex and require a smaller footprint compared to the current
technology since more than 100 RF lters will have to t into a smartphone
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. All these enhancements
depend on achieving eciency in cost and power, reducon in the space needed for each lter, and
the ability to manufacture lters in large quanes to meet fast-growing global demand.
In recent years, RF lter design engineers have applied several mathemacal modeling methods and
numerical simulaon techniques to help meet the stringent design requirements for 5G applicaons.
These include lumped parameter modeling, coupling of mode, nite elements, cascading techniques,
and boundary elements. These types of simulaons require simplifying assumpons in order to simulate
the frequency response for lters in a praccal amount of me, for example reducing the geometry to
a 2D cross-secon, or liming the number of frequency points invesgated.
Modeling techniques, while useful, are limited in terms of accuracy and eecveness. Real-world
devices exhibit 3D eects, which are oen poorly correlated to lab-scale experimental measurements.
These measurements can also misrepresent underlying mechanisms, leading to false conclusions
and compromised designs. The designer’s ability to explore mulple design concepts or migate the
eect of non-idealies in the designs, such as spurious modes in the frequency response, have been
limited by weaknesses in the simulaon tools available to date. Innovave soluons are required to
simplify the RF lter design process, the goal of which is to reduce the size of lters and meet the high
frequency bandwidth requirements, while improving their performance with regard to isolaon and
rejecon loss, temperature compensaon, linearity, and power handling.
OnScale empowers design teams by providing them with mulphysics solvers combined with scalable
high-performance compung (HPC) resources which are available through the latest cloud technology.
When using OnScale, engineers are not restricted by the typical simplifying 2D assumpons. While
simulang with OnScale, designers are able to explore a variety of designs simultaneously and simulate
a 3D acousc resonator for the enre lter die, which helps in generang virtual specicaons and a
digital design of the lter die.
The rst RF lters integrated in mobile phones were based on high-Q dielectric ceramic resonators.
Given the high velocity and 15 mm wavelength of electromagnec waves in the dielectric material,
lters were quite bulky, with a typical lateral dimension of 5 x 5 mm and thickness of more than 7
mm. The development of acousc wave piezoelectric resonators with velocies ranging from 3000
to 12000 m/s and wavelengths of 2 to 6 µm helped to dramacally reduce the size of the RF lter
die, to 0.8 mm x 0.8 mm and thickness less than 0.1 mm. The cost of lter die was also reduced by
using modern photolithography processes for resonator fabricaon. This led to the explosive growth
of acousc resonator-based lter technology for smartphones, which is now a mul-billion-dollar
industry
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