Over one billion RF transceivers, miniature radio frequency chips that establish the radio link between mobile phones and base stations, have been shipped to date by Infineon Technologies, a leading supplier of communication ICs. If these chips were laid side by side, they would cover the distance from Munich to New York. Last year the figure stood at 230 million. The market research firm Strategy Analytics confirms that in 2006 the largest share of the one billion unit market was in Infineon's hands. The company has been supplying the tier 1 mobile phone manufacturers with RF chips for 15 years.
Seven RF transceivers leave the manufacturer's plants every second. Infineon's radio-frequency technologies are to be found in approximately every fourth mobile phone worldwide. "This is a gauge for the high quality of our products and the innovative engineering development," says Stefan Wolff, head of the RF Engine business unit at Infineon. "The world's best-known mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG buy our modules for their mobile phones. Our chips support all the mobile phone standards from GSM through UMTS all the way to future technologies such as long term evolution (LTE)."
In the mobile world, an RF transceiver is required to enable every aspect of its functionality: the speech signals converted into digital signals are modulated via the RF transceiver onto a radio-frequency carrier signal, which can then be transmitted and received by the antenna. The RF transceiver is the module in the mobile phone, which is responsible for good speech and link quality as well as long standby and talk time.
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