RFMW Increases Transmit Range with Skyworks Bluetooth / Zigbee FEM

RFMW announced design and sales support for a 2.4 GHz front-end module (FEM) from Skyworks Solutions. The SKY66404-11, 2.4 GHz FEM is designed for Zigbee®, Thread and Bluetooth® (including low energy) ultra-low power IoT applications spanning sensors, beacons, smart meters and thermostats, wireless cameras, smoke and CO detectors, wearables and medical wearables. The compact (3.5 x 3.0 x 0.82 mm) multi-chip module houses circuitry providing increased efficiency, as well as 4X greater range than stand-alone SoC devices.

The module includes a power amplifier, low-noise amplifier, low-loss bypass path, transmit and receive switches, and digital controls compatible with 1.7 V to 3.6 V CMOS levels. Its wide supply voltage range allows the device to be used in battery powered IoT applications over a broad spectrum of the battery discharge curve. The integrated LNA enables as much as 6 to 8 dB receive sensitivity improvement versus discrete SoCs and the low power consumption makes it ideal for operation from coin cell batteries.