By Robert Smith,  Commercial Director at PRFI

What major technological advancements or innovations do you foresee occurring in your industry in 2024, and how do you plan to adapt or lead in these areas?

Robert Smith

In the RF compound semiconductor industry we are seeing increasing levels of integration of different semiconductor technologies onto the same process, such as pHEMTs, HBTs and PIN diodes. This offers new opportunities for innovative levels of functionality. PRFI has experience with most of the major foundries and can select the most appropriate process or technology for a specific application, taking into account all the technical, commercial, and supply chain considerations.

We also see a continuation of the trend towards packaging high-power PAs into SMT packages to drive down costs and allow the use of standard PCB assembly reflow processes. PRFI has extensive knowledge of the design, simulation, and evaluation of various packaging technologies.

How do you predict consumer behaviour and market trends will evolve in 2024, and what strategies are you implementing to meet these changing demands?

We think the focus will be on ubiquity of coverage and reliability rather than the emergence of a new ‘killer’ application to drive increased capacity. To facilitate this, PRFI is working with partners in the satcom industry to design ICs that enable LEO satellite constellations for near-ubiquitous coverage.

We continue to see growth in requirements for high-power solid-state power amplifiers, as GaN technology steadily replaces tubes in a range of RF and microwave applications. We see this trend continuing through 2024 and beyond.
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