Murata Joins imec's Research Platform on Reconfigurable radios

Leuven (Belgium) – June 26, 2012 – Imec and Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. announce that they have entered into a three year research collaboration on reconfigurable radio IC design. By joining forces, Murata will gain insight and better understanding in technology solutions and challenges for cognitive reconfigurable radio front-end. This will enable them to better assess the impact on antenna interface components. Murata’s expertise on components and system will fuel imec’s research towards fully reconfigurable radios.

The trend in wireless communication to have ubiquitous access to a multitude of services drives the development of reconfigurable radios in deep-submicron CMOS technology. Especially for emerging standards such as next-generation cellular (LTE Advanced) that use a broad range of operating frequencies and bandwidths, multi-mode capabilities are a must. Imec’s R&D program on reconfigurable radios investigates reconfigurable RF (radio-frequency) solutions, high-speed/low-power analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and new approaches to digitize future RF architectures. Nowadays, one of the main challenges in designing fully reconfigurable radios is minimizing the stringent antenna interface requirements and making the antenna filters reconfigurable.

“Imec was chosen as R&D partner because of its longstanding expertise and excellent track-record in reconfigurable radio IC design;” says Mr. Norio Nakajima, Vice President Module Business Unit at Murata. “We hope that this collaboration with imec will give us insight into the technology and design challenges for next-generation reconfigurable radios. This is important to leverage our vast knowhow in antenna interface components and to identify new opportunities for next generation front-end modules.”

We are excited with this agreement with Murata, as it emphasizes the prominent role of imec as R&D centre in reconfigurable radio design;” stated Liesbet Van der Perre, director of the green radio programs, “With our R&D program on reconfigurable radios, we gather industrial players from across the value chain, to jointly develop next-generation reconfigurable radios. By combining fundamental rethinking of the circuit architectures and designs, and clever use of the benefits of deeply scaled digital CMOS technologies, we aim to develop reconfigurable radio transceivers competitive in terms of area, cost, performance and power consumption. The transceivers will cover all key broadband communication standards including LTE and LTE advanced, digital broadcasting and next-generation WiFi (802.11n/ac).”

About imec

Imec performs world-leading research in nanoelectronics. Imec leverages its scientific knowledge with the innovative power of its global partnerships in ICT, healthcare and energy. Imec delivers industry-relevant technology solutions. In a unique high-tech environment, its international top talent is committed to providing the building blocks for a better life in a sustainable society. Imec is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, US, China, India and Japan. Its staff of close to 2,000 people includes more than 600 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2011, imec's revenue (P&L) was about 300 million euro. Further information on imec can be found at www.imec.be.