The ABCs of Integrated Ls and Cs

摘要

If you examine several generations of a small RF product, be it a cell-phone handset, a wireless-network node, or a GPS receiver, you will observe a steady shrinking of chip sets. The number of chips and the total board area covered by active devices decreases with every design cycle. Although the area that passive devices consume for signal-coupling networks, filters, and supply decoupling also shrinks, the space savings comes largely as a result of smaller packages. Pepper-sized devices populate the typical circuit board in large number, visually suggestive of FR4 au poivre.