RFaxis, a fabless semiconductor company focused on innovative, next-generation RF solutions for the wireless and connectivity markets, announced that its fully integrated, single-chip, single-die, RFX2402 RF Front-end IC (RFeIC), designed for the very competitive 2.4 GHz WLAN market segment, has been shown to come in at a lower price point than solutions comprised of commodity discrete components.

"The 2.4 GHz WLAN market has become so competitive today that global OEM/ODMs have gone back to implementing RF front-ends with discrete components," said Mike Neshat, President and CEO of RFaxis. "Even established front-end module vendors cannot sustain a profitable 2.4 GHz WLAN business."

While regressing back to discrete components has been rationalized by some as 'enabling flexibility,' the age-old challenges associated with discrete front-end components -- including RF complexity, marginal performance and questionable reliability -- must again be addressed.

"It's a real dilemma," explained Neshat. "You may save some cost by resorting to discretes, but you wipe out this cost-savings with increased engineering and warranty costs, lower performance and larger size -- not to mention the real business impact of unreliable devices and unhappy end users."

Fortunately, OEM/ODMs can avoid this dilemma with RFaxis' RFX2402 RFeIC. Built upon a game-changing RF front-end platform, the RFX2402 RFeIC comes complete with a high-efficiency PA, LNA, switching/matching circuitry, and harmonic filter, all optimally matched on a single BiCMOS die. This plug-and-play solution can literally be dropped onto a board with just a bypass capacitor.

"While our RFeIC pending patents protect our IP relative to any material processes and technologies, we decided to go-to-market with IBM's BiCMOS technology so that our customers would not have to sacrifice front-end quality of service and reliability for costs. Our decision has been validated by our customers in Asia over the past several months. We have received endorsements and design wins from major 2.4 GHz WLAN players, who have confirmed that our RFX2402 pricing beats the prices of even discrete front-ends while offering unprecedented performance and integration, as well as the smallest size. Additionally, unlike some front-end module companies that have slashed their prices even below their costs on comparable solutions just to stay in the game, RFaxis can comfortably sustain its 2.4 GHz WLAN front-end business as the new price leader for this segment," Neshat continued.