RF front-end chips include RF switches, RF low noise amplifiers, RF power amplifiers, diplexers, RF filters, and other chips.
Among them, the radio frequency switch is used for switching the receiving and transmitting of the radio frequency signal and switching between different frequency bands; the radio frequency low noise amplifier is used for realizing the radio frequency signal amplification of the receiving channel; the radio frequency power amplifier is used for realizing the radio frequency signal amplification of the transmitting channel; The device is used to retain the signals in a specific frequency band, and the signals outside the specific frequency band are filtered out; the duplexer is used to isolate the transmission and reception signals, so that the reception and transmission can work normally when the same antenna is shared.
According to the statistics of QYR Electronics Research Center, the global front-end market for RF fronts grew at a rate of approximately 12% per year from 2010 to 2016, reaching US$ 11.488 billion in 2016. It will continue to grow at a high rate of over 12% in the future, by 2020. Nearly 19 billion US dollars.
In the past ten years, the communications industry has experienced two major industrial upgrades from 2G (GSM/CDMA/Edge) to 3G (WCDMA/CDMA2000/TD-SCDMA) and then to 4G (FDD-LTE/TD-LTE). To improve the compatibility of smartphones with different communication systems, the number of RF front-end chips in 4G solutions has significantly increased compared with 2G solutions and 3G solutions, and the overall value of RF front-end chips in individual smartphones has also continuously improved.
According to Yole Development's statistics, the value of the RF front-end chip in the 2G smartphone is US$0.9, the price in the 3G smartphone is increased to US$3.4, and the value of the RF front-end chip in the smartphone supporting the regional 4G format has reached US$6.15. In high-end LTE smart phones, it is US$15.30, which is 17 times that of RF front-end chips in 2G standard smart phones. Therefore, in the context of continuous penetration of 4G smartphones, the market size of the RF front-end chip industry will continue to grow rapidly.
With the approaching commercialization of 5G, a preliminary consensus has now been formed that existing mobile communications and IoT communication standards under the 5G standard will be unified. Therefore, future applications of RF front-end chip products under unified standards will be further improved. Zoom in. At the same time, the value of the RF front-end chip for a single smartphone under 5G will continue to rise.
At this stage, the global RF front-end chip market is dominated by major European and American manufacturers, and Qorvo is one of the best. As the world's leading provider of innovative RF solutions, Qorvo has been dedicated to smart phones, infrastructure and space. The defense industry provides core technologies and RF solutions.
At present, Qorvo is also fully supporting the development of 5G technology. In the 5G RF front-end market, it has accumulated many core technologies. Last year, Qorvo released the industry's first Sub-6 GHz 5G RF front-end module QM19000, highly integrated high-performance QM19000 Realize high linearity, ultra-low latency and extremely high throughput to meet or exceed future development needs of 5G applications.
At the just-concluded 2018 Mobile World Congress (MWC), Qorvo's 5G RF Front-end (RFFE) won the GTI 2018 Mobile Technology Innovation Breakthrough Award. At the same time, at the 20th GTI Symposium in London, UK, Qorvo and NI teamed up to test the first commercially available 5G RF front end module (FEM).
In addition, Qorvo has played an integral role in the 5G R&D process in South Korea, Japan, the United States, and Chinese operators. It is worth mentioning that Qorvo has announced its participation in China Mobile's '5G Terminal Pioneer Program'. Qorvo will Work together with all parties to jointly announce the first batch of 5G pre-commercial terminals in the first half of 2019 based on the '5G Terminal Pioneer Program', including data terminals, smart phones and other products.