A 5 x 5 mm Highly Integrated Dual-band WLAN Front-End Module Simplifies 802.11 a/b/g and 802.11n Radio Designs

Abstract

A highly integrated 5 x 5 x 0.9 mm dual-band wireless LAN front-end module (FEM) is presented. The FEM features 29 dB gain and 19 dBm at 54 Mbps with EVM < 3% and 180 mA for 2.4 to 2.5 GHz. For 4.9 to 5.9 GHz transmission, the FEM delivers 25 dB gain and 17 dBm at 54 Mbps with EVM < 3% and 195 mA. The FEM's receive chains can be realized either with LAN having >11.4 dB gain LNA gain with NF < 2.5 dB for the low band and < 2.8 dB for the high band or with used a RX diplexer with <1 insertion loss. The FEM significantly simplifies 802.11 a/b/g radio designs and provides an effective building block for multichannel 802.11n radios designs.