RF Front End Module Architectures for 5G

Florinel Balteanu
Skyworks Solutions Inc., CA92617, USA
[email protected]

Abstract— Worldwide adoption of 3G/4G smartphones for transition from 4G to 5G. There is also a lot of pressure to keep
more than 5 billion of people has been one of the main driving a balance between the increase functionality and the additional
engine behind semiconductor industry. 5G is expected to bring cost/size associated with this. Many 5G new radio (NR)
higher data capacity, low latency and new RF hardware requirements are specified with different requirements across
enhancements which will open the market for new application
bands and this is more pronounced for 5G NR due to very wide
where our smartphones will be a conduit. CMOS lower features
nodes as FinFET 7nm/14nm CMOS allow the computational range of frequency bands. Frequency bands for 5G are divided
power and lower power consumption required for the use of into two frequency ranges:
digital signal processing and RF digital calibration which are • Frequency range 1 (FR1) includes all existing and new
essential for 4G/5G modem and application processor bands and corresponds to 450 MHz–6 GHz; sub-6 GHz
technology. The goal of having a single die for the entire 4G/5G bands.
functionality has faded away to a more realistic partitioning • Frequency range 2 (FR2) includes new bands and
where many RF and analogue blocks are integrated with other corresponds to mmWave bands 24.25 GHz–52.6 GHz.
components such as RF acoustic filters in multiple RF front-end-
modules. This paper presents RF front end architectures which A typical RFFE for 5G is presented in Fig. 1 and the
will be part of 5G smartphones together with circuit and transition from 3G/4G FEMs to 5G FEMs poses the following
measurement details. challenges:

Keywords—RF front end (RFFE), front end module (FEM),

switch, power management IC (PMIC), GSM, 3G, 4G, 5G, GPS,
long term evolution (LTE), new radio (NR), user equipment (UE),
WiFi, CMOS, GaAs, SiGe, silicon on insulator (SOI), duplexer,
filter, diplexer, multimode multiband power amplifier (MMBPA),
frequency division duplex (FDD), time division duplex (TDD),
carrier aggregation (CA), MIMO, digital signal processing (DSP),
RF transmit (Tx), RF receive (Rx), multi-chip-module (MCM),
licensed-assisted access (LAA), enhanced LAA (eLAA), adjacent
channel leakage power (ACLR), internet of things (IoT), uplink
(UL), downlink (DL), serial parallel interface (SPI), error vector
magnitude (EVM), digital signal processing (DSP).

I. INTRODUCTION

The continuous need for high data rate in mobile

applications for more users is driving the adoption of 5G long
term evolution (LTE) [1-5] and WiFi 6 [6]. 5G using sub-
6GHz bands and mmWave spectrum [4] together with other Fig. 1. 4G/5G RF front end diagram.
RF technologies such as ultra-wideband (UWB) and sensing • Improve the power efficiency for mmWave FR2 radios;
and computation techniques [7,8] will enable multiple services, most probably FR2 will be used mainly for downlink in
for example vehicle-to-vehicle (V2X) communications. Ultra- mobile applications [10, 11].
reliable and low latency communications (URLLC) services in • Increase the number of antennas to 6-8 with the
mobile networks is a prerequisite for making autonomous requirement to reach these antennas from different
vehicle safe together with principles and architectures used for 4G/5G LTE radios which have to coexist with multiple
safety-critical applications [9]. Also 5G aims to support a wide WiFi & WiFi 6 radios, Bluetooth, GPS and UWB.
variety of new and enhanced services such as factory • New 5G dedicated bands for sub-6 GHz such as n77/n78
automation, self-driving vehicles and IoT. For some features in (3.3-4.2 GHz), n79 (4.4-4.5 GHz) and eLAA bands B46,
5G the mobile devices as smartphones will be just a conduit for B47 (5.15 GHz-5.92 GHz).
a cloud of applications. Next generation 5G smartphones need • Wider channel bandwidth up to 100MHz for FR1 where
to carry over the legacy voice (2G/3G) and will also need to new techniques for envelope tracking (ET) are required.
integrate sub-6GHz bands initially in order to provide seamless

978-1-7281-0586-4/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE

 • 5G high power user equipment (HPUE) requires 26 dBm bands will be re-farmed to 4.5G/5G. The new 5G bands will
at the antenna port. provide the primary capacity layer with multiple MIMO. All
• Dual-sim operation for voice under 2G (GSM) and data these radios need to share common antennas without jamming
(3G/4G/5G) which will increase the linearity the other device radios. In addition, old features such as 2G
requirements for multiple Tx/Rx paths operating at the GSM have to be supported together with the new feature
same time. introduced in 5G such as LAA and eLAA that use 5GHz
• Higher peak to average power ratio waveforms for unlicensed band as bandwidth aggregation with a licensed
uplink (UL) such as 256 QAM; this requires power LTE anchor. Usually the LTE anchor is in low band (LB)
amplifier (PA) back-off with lower distortions, noise and (450MHz-900MHz) due to lower propagation loss [12]. For a
less than 1.85% EVM. 15m height base-station the path loss (PL) for antenna to
• LAA and eLAA will be introduced as part of 5G as a outdoor UE for frequency below 6GHz is determined by
possibility for bandwidth aggregation with a licensed
anchor LTE band in UL and DL. PLdB = 10 log10 R 4 + 21log10 f + K (2)
• Intra-coexistence with actual 3G/4G bands in 5G re-
farmed bands. PL is in general dependent of 1/R4 and for different
• Cost effective and size for 2x2 UL-MIMO and downlink propagation scenarios such as outdoor-indoor the loss is
(DL) data rate coverage dependent of 1/f 3. Figure 2 presents the path loss for different
frequencies for a 15m base-station.
The LTE power delivered at the antenna required by 3GPP
standard is 23dBm. With the adoption of 5G and the resulting
power losses from filters/duplexers, switches, diplexers, board
and impedance/aperture tuners (IT, AT) the PA is required to
deliver at least 27-28 dBm assuming less than 4-5 dB total
losses. For 5G LTE user equipment (UE) there is an increase
from 20 MHz to 40 MHz/60 MHz for the uplink modulation
bandwidth in low/mid bands as well an increase of the output
antenna power for HPUE to 26 dBm and therefore an increase
in the PA output power. There is also an increase in
modulation bandwidth up to 100 MHz for high/ultrahigh 5G
bands such as new bands n77/n78 and n79. The goal of 5G is
to reach a transmission capacity of 1Gbs. The capacity of a
wireless system is determined by Shannon formula as
k
en ∗ S k
C = Bw  log 2 (1 + ) (1) Fig. 2. Path loss versus distance and frequency.
k =1 N x + Ik
To achieve higher capacity following Eq.1 these are the A lot of research has been done for single die PA in different
techniques which are incorporated in 5G: technologies such as SiGe, CMOS and SOI [13-14] and band
proliferation and coexistence requirements are the biggest
• increase channel bandwidth Bw; eg 100MHz LTE. share and cost is determined by the acoustic filters which are
• increase spatial multiplexing level k through MIMO placed together with SOI switches into a FEM with duplexers
• increase the transmit power; such as 26dBm (HPUE). (FEMiD) as shown in Fig. 3. However more integration is
• decrease noise Nx and improve receive sensitivity. necessary due to increase number of Rx paths for CA and
• reduce in-band interference on link k, especially in MIMO also the need to integrate the LNAs and RX filters.
multiple UL Tx such as CA and MIMO.
• higher order modulation such as 256QAM for UL
• increase signal Sk through use of ET – en factor.

II. 5G FRONT END MODULE STRUCTURE

The smartphone market is changing at an incredibly rapid

pace. With the transition from 4G to 5G there is a need for the
geographical coverage for more than 50 bands from 500MHz
to 6GHz with few stock keeping units (SKUs). In parallel
there are other radio and bands used in the same time such as
UWB (6-8GHz), WiFi/WiFi6 (2.4GHz/5GHz), GPS (1.17GHz,
1.5GHz), Bluetooth (2.4GHz) and NFC (13.56KHz). Sub Fig. 3. LTE 4G/5G front end module typical structure.
3GHz bands provide primary cellular coverage and 3G/4G
One of the goals for 5G LTE is to reach data rates of 1GBs. are implemented there are challenges due to high
The theoretical data rate (DR) is given by the formula intermodulation (IMD) distortions.
EPC: Evolved Packet Core (LTE Core Network)
DR = ns • m • (ncc • nsc • rb) • nss • nsl • ovh • tddov (3) NG CN: New Generation Core Network, 5G-CN
eNb: eNodeB, 4G LTE basestation
where ns represents the number of bits per symbol (8 bits for gNb: gNodeB, 5G NR basestation
256QAM), m represents the number of MIMO data streams, UP/CP: User-Plane/Control-Plane
mmW: 5G mmW Core Network
ncc represents number of component carriers for carrier
aggregation, nsb represents number of sub-carriers, rb 4G LTE EPC 5G NG CN 5G FR2
represents number of resource blocks, nss represents number
symbols per slot, nsl represents number of slots, ovh (in
E-UTRA NR NR
percentage) is the overhead required for control and coding
and tddov represents TDD duty cycle. Using this formula for CP UP UP UP
5x20MHz carrier aggregation streams, 4x4 MIMO and
256QAM the DR is
DR = 8 • 4 • (5 • 12 • 100) • 7 • 2000 • 75% • 60% = 1.2Gb / s (4)
40dBm 40dBm
gNB
The same DR can be obtained using 4x4 MIMO with the new
5G MHB/UHB bands (n41, n77, n78 & n79), 100 MHz
channel modulation bandwidth (BW) and 256 QAM as shown LTE Data NR data
mmW data
in Fig. 4 where acoustic filter multiplexers are used.

23dBm+26dBm

Fig. 5. 4G/5G dual connectivity (DC) configuration.

There are different ways to increase the 5G throughput such as:

• increase number of CA carriers
• enhance the coverage using lower-frequency carrier
as supplementary uplink (SUL) in addition to NR’s
dedicated UL/DL carrier.
All these techniques such as DC and SUL have to support
more than one Tx in UL together with several Rx in DL as
well WiFi and other radios which will create RF interference
Fig. 4. WiFi and 4x4 5G MHB/UHB MIMO LTE FEM. through conductive and radiated paths. Intermodulation
products are determined by all the RF Tx paths as well all
Usually UL/DL is asymmetric for UE in terms of data rates other clock related activity (charge pump, SPI clocks, etc).
but to accommodate a high DL data rate still there is the need There are few types of interference due to simultaneous UL
for 7-10% UL data rate for acknowledge signals. Also due to and DL over different bans in CA configurations which will
different Rx/Tx configurations between DL and UL and due to degrade the Rx sensitivity (desense):
high power Tx capabilities for base-stations (40 dBm) the • Interference from sub-harmonic mixing for CA case
4G/5G is limited in UL. This becomes more an issues for when the higher UL frequency signal is a multiple of
higher BW and the new 5G MHB/UHB bands. To increase the the lower frequency ( Band 7 and Band 27/CA case)
coverage 5G has adopted HPUE (Power Class 2). This will and desense the low band Rx.
allow 19% increase in cell coverage radius (42% increases in • Interference from the harmonic of lower frequency
the base-station coverage area) as shown in Fig. 2. There are UL signals to the higher frequency DL when the
two basic deployment scenarios for 4G transition to 5G harmonic of UL lands into UL Rx frequency band.
networks: 5G standalone (SA) deployment and non-standalone For example when a UE is transmitting on Band 3
(NSA) deployment. For NSA deployment UE should support 4G/LTE and receiving on 5G NR bands n77/n78.
dual connectivity (DC) for 4G LTE and 5G NR. DC will Second harmonic of Band 3 will land into 5G NR Rx
combine the coverage advantage of existing 4G LTE networks for bands n77/n78. Another CA case for desense is
with the higher DR throughput and latency advantages of 5G when 3rd harmonic (H3) from low band lands in RX
NR. NSA will enable 5G NR in smartphones with a smooth band high band as presented in Fig. 6.
evolution from 4G and will be the key to mmWave mobility • Intermodulation distortions from IMD product
as sub-6GHz anchor will be needed for roaming and between different Tx frequencies and/or clock
handovers as shown in Fig. 5. When 4G FDD LTE and 5G NR frequencies.
 PA linearity expressed through error vector magnitude (EVM)
is started to be challenging to be met (less than 1.85%),
although 5G will allow 4-5dB maximum power reduction
(MPR). A number of techniques have been used to meet the
efficiency and linearity requirements, the most extensively
used and researched being Doherty and ET PAs [15, 16]. The
adoption of both techniques has been possible by advances in
digital signal processing (DSP) and technology scaling such as
14nm/7nm FinFET. Doherty techniques provide high
efficiency but have limitation in terms of broadband operation,
operation in back-off mode and load mismatch [17]. Doherty
amplifiers with n-away structures to increase the bandwidth
Fig. 6. Low band to high band desense due to third harmonic. (Fig. 8) are going to be used in 5G base-station [18].
As presented in Fig. 6 to avoid any desense due to third
harmonic at least 90 dB attenuation/isolation is required which
is very challenging even using FEMiD shielding. From this
perspective, two or more Tx might coverage highest power
consumption for 5G FEM is determined by the PA. With the
two or more RF transmitters operating in the same time there
are higher linearity requirements for antenna SOI switches as
well antenna tuning elements. For example assuming
sensitivity of a typical LTE 5MHz (25RBs) as -101.5 dBm
and 4.5 dB margin the linearity requirement IIP3 to avoid
jamming assuming two Tx1 and Tx2 (Fig, 7) is given by
PTx 2 + 2 PTx1 − PIMD 23 + 2 ∗ 23 − ( −106 )
IIP3 = = = 87 .5dBm (5)
2 2 Fig. 8. 3-way Doherty amplifier structure.

In mobile applications, such as smartphones, ET is used with a

broadband PA with class E output match for low, middle and
high bands. The class E PA concept has been introduced in
[19]. The optimum series feed inductance L and parallel
capacitance C can be obtained by
R ,
0 .685 (7)
L = 0 .732 C=
ω ωR
The technology used by PAs is mainly GaAs and the typical
structure is presented in Fig. 9. The output match includes also
2fo and 3fo harmonic traps and the ET is applied to the last
stage. The last stage can be also ET biased tracked to further
increase the efficiency.

Fig. 7. Intermodulation distortions and WiFi desense. PMIC Vdc

Vbat DC_DC Lpa Cpa
Assuming an external blocker at -30 dBm and a Tx2 uplink ET combiner
signal at 23 dBm the switch linearity IIP2 is given by Vdc_ctrl Vdc_trck

IIP2 = Pblk + PTx 2 − PIMD = −30 + 23 − ( −106) = +99dBm (6)

Env_p Cac
In addition to WiFi coexistence with LTE bands 7, 40 and 41
Env_n
single LTE due to uplink CA and limited antenna isolation
might be also a desense of the WiFi . With the adoption of 5G Tracker Lm
RF_out
all these desense scenarios need to be considered. Vdc1 R1
Dynamic
Bias
Co Cp
III. 4G/5G POWER AMPLIFIERS Li R2 2fo
C1
The RF PA is one of the critical components within FEM RF_in Qf 3fo
because of efficiency and linearity requirements for 4G/5G as Q1 Vbias
rb Class E
expressed by adjacent channel leakage power ratio (ACLR)
which have to be achieved with high efficiency for all the
power levels. With the adoption of 256QAM for 5G UL the Fig. 9. ET and power amplifier with class E output match.
 IV. RF SWITCH IMPLEMENTATION
The FEMiD include several SOI RF switches and a typical
switch structure for one arm is presented in Fig. 10.

Fig. 11. SAW acoustic filter structure.

To keep the acoustic waves from dissipating into silicon

Vneg
Vneg

substrate an acoustic Bragg reflector is created using thin layer

as in solidly mounted resonator BAW (BAW-SMR). Another
approach etches a cavity underneath the active area as in film
bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR). Both types of BAW filters
(Fig.12) present quality factors of 2,000 to 3,000 usually
Fig. 10. SOI switch schematic. higher than SAW filters.
For OFF FETs the peak RF voltage across drain-source for
each transistor assuming equal voltage division is

V DS _ peak = 2 (VTh − V NEG ) (8)

The number of series FETs (n) is determined by the maximum
RF power applied and the RF breakdown voltage VDS_peak
VTx2 max 2 ( nV DS _ peak ) 2
Pmax = = (9) Fig. 12. BAW-SMR and FBAR filter structures.
2 ∗ Z0 Z0
The insertion loss (IL) and input intercept point (IIP3) for a In Fig. 13 a BAW filter characteristic used for WiFi and 5G
series-shunt switch are defined by the equations n41 band coexistence is presented.
 Ron  2  2πCoff ( Ron + Zo) 2 
IL = 10 log 1 +  +  (10)
 2 Zo   2  
 Isat ( Ron + 2 Zo ) 
2 4
IIP 3 = 10 log   + 30
Filter Loss (dB)

2  (11)
 4 RonZo 
where Ron is the on-state channel resistance of the switch
1
Ron = n (12)
w
μCox (Vpos − Vth )
l
Vpos is the voltage applied to turn on the series switch.
V. RF FRONT END MODULE FILTERS
Fig. 13. WiFI BAW filter rejection.
The advanced of the smartphones and transition from 4G to
5G with high requirements for different RF coexistence VI. RF FRONT ANTENNA TUNERS
scenarios and also the manufactures demand for global phones
Actual smartphones use several antennas and based on the
drive the need for the use of many acoustic filters. In the early
best impedance matching and propagation path the switching
2G/3G generations filter requirements have been handled
between antennas with high linearity double pole double
using surface acoustic filters (SAW) but with the evolution to
through (DPDT) is one of the several diversity schemes. This
4GG/5G and higher RF frequencies there is a high demand for
is used to improve the quality and reliability of the RF
bulk-acoustic-wave (BAW) resonators filters. SAW and BAW
wireless link to base-station. 5G smartphones will use 6-8
are complementary technologies and SAW can be
antennas which will cover several bands. For these reasons
manufactured and used up to around 2.5 GHz (Fig.11). BAW
antenna tuners (AT) are used together with impedance tuners
technology is capable to create narrow band filters up to 6-8%
(IT) for antenna mismatch as presented in Fig. 14.
of the carrier frequency.
 PA [14] as shown in Fig. 17 to reduce these effects which will
impact the Rx noise and ACLR.

Fig. 14. Antenna and impedance tuners.

Antenna bandwidth is given by the formula Fig. 16. a) isotropic system; b) anisotropic system
3 The tracker maximum frequency response Fmax is determined
df (a / λ )
=k (13) by
f η Fmax = SR (14)
where a is antenna length, λ is the wavelength, η is the 2πVoutpk
antenna radiation efficiency. From (13) covering wider bands
can be obtained using larger antennas or lower radiation
efficiency which both are undesirable and explain the need of
using antenna tuners. Fig. 15 presents the antenna efficiency
after tuning for a low band antenna.

Fig. 17. 5G HPUE power amplifier and tracker structure.

where SR is the output slew rate of the output stage. The error
amplifier structure with increased SR is presented in Fig. 18.

Fig. 15. Low band antenna efficiency with tunning.

VII. ENVELOPE TRACKING

ET techniques can be seen as an extension of the Shannon
theory for anisotropic systems as presented in Fig. 16. In (1)
the factor e represents the increase of the output signal when
the envelope signal is aligned with the RF signal going into
the system PA. In ET the power supply voltage delivered to a
RF PA is following the envelope signal through a shaping
table circuit which resides in the 4G/5G modem and therefore
provides the required voltage for the PA to operate in linear
region without clipping. With the migration to 5G NR where
Fig. 18. ET error amplifiers Amp1 & Amp2.
higher modulation bandwidth is required as well HPUE the
location of the ET relative to the PA has an impact on the If the PA is operated in ET mode Vdd=Vdc_trck is changing
memory effects, intermodulation distortions and noise. From based on the envelope (instantaneous power level). The
this perspective the ET is integrated in close proximity to the Vdc_trck_peak is the peak voltage and is determined by the
maximum power which has to be delivered under ET for different One of the RF LTE Tx characteristic is the calibration which
PAPR waveforms as expressed as becomes more difficult with ET, more uplink Tx bands (in 5G
Vdc _ trck _ peak LTE) and more RF coexistence scenarios. Calibration requires
PAPR = 20 log( ) (15) also frequency equalization through DPD due to Tx and
Vdc _ trck _ rms
duplexer response for different modulation bandwidth from
The two error amplifiers input stages provides a current signal 1.4 MHz to 100 MHz. A method where a baseband envelope
which control what voltage supply (Vdd_MLS) is applied to signal is aligned through a modulated RF signal and the delay
the output stage using a current hysteretic comparator. An is adjusted until the two baseband received signals have the
increase in the output Vdd_MLS will increase the same peak values is presented in Fig. 21.
instantaneous SR for the error amplifier without delay
mismatch for two paths as is the case for [20]. ET techniques
can be used also to locally linearize GaN PAs for 5G
mmWave as shown in Fig. 19.

Modulator
4G/5GModem
Fig. 21 FEMiD ET calibration structure.

DPD used for ET uses less modem resources and lower

bandwidth for uplink Tx compared with a DPD only solution.
The intermodulation distortion introduced by the delay
mismatch is given by
2
Fig. 19. ET used for GaN linearization. IMD l ,r = 2 π B RF Δ 2τ (17)

The envelope signal is used to dynamical bias the top GaN where BRF is the bandwidth of the RF signal and Δτ is the
cascade transistors and keep the gain transistors M1-M1n in delay mismatch. The minimum between left and right
constant gm region due to strong dependence of gm and Id in intermodulation distortion determines the ACLR of the ET PA
relation to Vds. For CMOS the relation between drain current & tracker
and voltage is given by ACLR = min( IMD )+k (18)
l, r
1 W
I D = μC ox (V GS − VTH ) 2 (1 + λ V DS ) (16) where k is a correction factor determined by PAPR and how
2 L much the PA is compressed. Figure 22 presents the ACLR
This presents a local ET linearization effect. Using GaN value versus delay mismatch.
devices the technique provides enough voltage swing for high
power applications such as mmWave Tx paths. This might be
useful for future low feature GaN on silicon substrate.
VIII. IMPLEMENTATION AND MEASUREMENTS
The FEMs for smartphone end up in very high volume
products and therefore all the cost and hardware integration
associated with the functionality have to be considered and the
evolution from 4G to 5G is an evolutionary process. Fig. 20
presents a photo of a MMBPA with the control circuitry and
the ET amplifier on the same substrate as well a SOI switch.

HBT Amplifier

Fig. 22. ACLR versus delay mismatch.

MMBPA
Typically PAs use GaAs as technology and laminate substrate
CMOS
for matching networks due to lower losses as shown in Table
Control and Tracker I. PA and ET error amplifier are integrated into the same
CMOS die using 0.18µm technology. Together with the
Fig. 20. MMBPA with error amplifier and SOI SP10T switch photos. 0.18µm SOI switches, acoustic filters and coupler are
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