EDACafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – PRFI

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.

Where do you see the growth areas for the RF and microwave industry in 2024?

We are seeing strong interest in aerospace and defence applications, and in space/satcom. After a downturn in companies raising funding in 2023 we foresee an increase in innovative startups in 2024 that will require custom RF and microwave hardware to fulfil their potential. PRFI is well suited to supporting startups as it has an established design team and all necessary CAD software and test and measurement equipment, meaning we can quickly respond to clients’ requirements.

PRFI has been helping clients address obsolescence issues for a number of years. Generally this is a quicker and more cost effective approach for customers compared to redesigning and requalifying their RF systems/subsystems. Due to recent M&A activities in the compound semiconductor industry we anticipate new opportunities in this area.

How do you envision the role and impact of artificial intelligence in your industry in 2024 and what steps is your company taking to integrate AI into its operations or offerings?

Despite the hype around artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), we see it having a limited impact on the MMIC design flow in 2024. As AL and ML become more integrated into EDA tools we see them being used as an additional tool in a designer’s toolbox, much as a circuit optimiser is today, rather than being used for the complete design process. It should be noted that the quality of AI/ML output is also dependent on the dataset that has been used to train it and the IP and commercial implications of this are not yet fully understood. We at PRFI are monitoring the development of AI/ML and will utilise it as it develops into a proven and reliable aid to designers.

About Author:

Robert Smith is Commercial Director for PRFI where his role includes overseeing the design of mmWave GaN power amplifiers, broadband MMICs, LNAs and RF switches. His experience encompasses designing on GaAs and GaN processes at Qorvo, Wolfspeed and WIN Semiconductors. Before joining PRFI, Robert designed transmitter modules for active phased array radar.

He received a Ph.D. in microwave engineering from Cardiff University, where he specialised in broadband power amplifier design. Robert is a reviewer for IEEE Microwave and Wireless Component Letters, has written multiple conference and industrial journal papers and is on the Editorial Review Board for Microwave Journal. He received his MBA in Technology Management in 2023.

Category: Predictions

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 21st, 2024 at 2:15 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.