June 23, 2014, Seoul – Infineon Technologies (Korea Representative Director Seung-soo Lee) announced that shipments of RF switches used in smartphones and tablets have surpassed 1 billion units. This demonstrates Infineon's status as the fastest-growing leader in the RF switch sector. Due to the increasing number of LTE bands integrated into next-generation smartphones and tablets, demand for RF switches is expected to show double-digit growth for several years.

The design of RF front-end components for 4G/LTE cellular phones is becoming increasingly complex and demanding as the number of frequency bands and modes in which the phone must operate increases. Along with various band or mode selections, application antenna switches are a core component of the RF front-end. These antenna switches can select which transmit (TX) or receive (RX) path to connect to the 4G/LTE main antenna or define which band to receive from the diversity antenna.

Infineon offers a broad portfolio consisting of antennas and general-purpose RF switches for smartphones. Compared to highly specialized and expensive SOI (Silicon on Insulator) technology, Infineon's bulk RF CMOS technology leverages greater economies of scale and flexibility in production by utilizing standard equipment, materials, and manufacturing processes. Because the CMOS process allows for the integration of drivers and MIPI/GPIO control circuits onto the same die as the switch, Infineon's bulk RF CMOS (130nm) offers several advantages over other vendors using Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) technology. Infineon's technology simplifies the design process and reduces the number of components. Furthermore, Infineon RF switches feature low insertion loss, high isolation, and low harmonic generation characteristics.

Infineon offers a wide range of RF general-purpose and antenna switches, ranging from types with a small number of throws to complex configurations with a large number of throws that include additional filtering functions. RF switches are available to module manufacturers as discrete, space-saving FCIP (Flip Chip In Package) TSLP or TSNP components or CSPs (Chip-Scale Packages). In addition, Infineon has recently expanded its portfolio by launching a family of antenna tuning solutions and antenna switch modules for LTE CA (Carrier Aggregation) applications.