difference between RFIC and MMIC

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sawaak

Joined: 20 May 2003
Posts: 153
Helped: 4

01 May 2004 13:48 difference between RFIC and MMIC

Hi,
can somebody please explain the difference Embarassed

please dont tell me that RFIC = Radio Frequency IC, and MMIC = Monolithic Microwave IC Wink

thanks
sawaak

arthur

Joined: 03 May 2001
Posts: 16

01 May 2004 14:33 Re: difference between RFIC and MMIC

It's just frequency different!
Microwave rang: 3~30 GHz.
RF: Below 3 GHz

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BigBoss

Joined: 17 Nov 2001
Posts: 1039
Helped: 63
Location: Earth

01 May 2004 16:26 Re: difference between RFIC and MMIC

arthur wrote:

It's just frequency different!
RF: Below 3 GHz

Below 6 GHz... Wink

goodboy_pl

Joined: 12 Mar 2002
Posts: 243

01 May 2004 21:18 Re: difference between RFIC and MMIC

for MMIC common substrate is GaAs and for RFIC is Si, the difference is that u have more resistive substrate in MMIC technology therefore higher frequency passive components are available.also u have gold metal layers as routing pathes in MMIC which is a plus in high frequencies.
current trand in CMOS scaling is pushing microwave's lower frequency from 1GHz toward 10 GHz.

BEST!

mesfet

Joined: 04 Jan 2002
Posts: 156
Helped: 1

02 May 2004 1:14 Re: difference between RFIC and MMIC

I think the definition of mmic and rfic are getting blurred now. FT of HBT is improving continously, there are already some papers about 60GHz transceiver using sige process from IBM or Jazz.

Mesfet+

marcomdd

Joined: 11 Jan 2003
Posts: 159
Helped: 3
Location: Rome

02 May 2004 11:09 Re: difference between RFIC and MMIC

Extracted from:
"Technologies, Device Characterization and Design for Front-End Electronics up to W Band", Giannini et al., SRT Conference Proceedings, Vol . 1, 2002

In the selection of MMIC or MIC technology a series of parameters should be considered. Regarding transistor performances,devices utilised in MIC are manufactured in the same way as the transistor built in MMIC ampli ﬁers,but in the MIC case transistors can be properly selected for best performances.The hybrid “chip and wire ”ampli ﬁers are successfully employed up to Ka band (a wider variety of passive circuit element values and quality factors are available in the MIC case),while in V and W band is preferable to utilize MMIC designs due to the reduction of parasitics (shorter connections)despite of higher substrate losses,
reliability improvement and repeatability of performances.However the design of MMICs requires particular care since circuit tuning is obviously impossible.

Last edited by marcomdd on 02 May 2004 11:13; edited 1 time in total

marcomdd

Joined: 11 Jan 2003
Posts: 159
Helped: 3
Location: Rome

02 May 2004 11:12 Re: difference between RFIC and MMIC

MMIC vs MIC

A series of parameters should be considered to choose MMIC or MIC technology:

1 Transistor performance
2 Passive Circuit Performance
3 Frequency range
4 Cost

1 Devices utilised in MIC are manufactured in the same manner as the transistor built into MMIC amplifiers, but in the MIC case transistors can be selected to give better performances.

2
- A wider variety of passive circuit element values and quality factors are available in the MIC case.
- Shorter connections on a MMICs (source-grounded).
- Reduction of parasitics in MMIC, reliability improvement, repeatability of performances.

3 Short connections of MMICs become an important factor above 50 GHz.

4 MMIC technology is less expensive only for large quantities.