Analysis of the development trend of RF front-end

Due to the rapid increase in market demand due to the acceleration of 5G construction, and domestic companies actively turning to localization, the current barriers to the localization of RF front-ends mainly include technology accumulation, talent reserves, and R&D funds. Under the prospect of high investment and high return on 5G RF front-end, the industry will attract more investment to gradually solve the above problems.

Radio frequency technology is widely used in many fields

Radio frequency (RF), that is, radio frequency current, has a frequency range of 300kHz-300GHz, and is a high-frequency current that changes more than 10,000 times per second.
The radio frequency front-end chip with radio frequency as the base core is located between the antenna and the transceiver, and together with the antenna, radio frequency transceiver, and baseband chip form a terminal communication system.

RF (Radio Frequency) technology is widely used in many fields
Such as: TV, radio, mobile phone, radar, automatic identification system, etc. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) refers to the application of radio frequency identification signals to identify targets. RFID applications include:

●ETC (Electronic Toll Collection)
●Railway Locomotive and Rolling Stock Recognition and Tracking
●Container identification
●Identification, authentication and tracking of valuables
●Object management for commercial retail, healthcare, logistics services, etc.
●Access prohibition management
●Animal identification and tracking
●Automatically lock the vehicle (anti-theft)

Among them, the RF front-end chip is the basis of terminal communication, playing the role of the "receiver" and "transmitter" of the wireless communication system, and finally realizes wireless signal reception by converting, combining, filtering, eliminating interference, and amplifying communication signals. And launch.

The performance of the RF front-end chip directly determines the communication mode that the terminal can support, as well as important performance indicators such as received signal strength, call stability, and transmission power, which directly affect the communication quality of the terminal.

In the future, there will be three main trends in the future development of the RF front-end chip industry:

1. integration and modularization have become an inevitable trend in the development of RF front-end chips.
2. cooperation and division of labor have become the mainstream development model of enterprises.
3.the "domestic substitution" of RF front-end chips ushered in new opportunities.

The RF front-end chip is different from the processor chip. The latter relies on the continuous shrinking of the process to achieve technological upgrades. As an important branch of the analog circuit used in the high-frequency field, the technological upgrade of the RF circuit mainly relies on new designs, new processes and new materials. Combine.

As the 5G era puts forward higher requirements on user experience rate, connection density, end-to-end delay, traffic density, mobility and peak rate, etc., higher requirements are also placed on RF front-end chips. Only with key upgrade routes such as new processes and new materials can they enjoy the rapid growth dividends brought about by the 5G era.

The future of radio frequency technology can be expected

With the acceleration of 5G, the RF front-end chip industry chain will usher in both volume and price increases.
Driven by the dual drive of 5G communications for mobile terminal demand and the increase in the value of stand-alone RF chips, the market scale of the RF front-end chip industry continues to grow rapidly.

According to YOLE's statistics, the global consumption of RF front-end chips in 2018 was 9.6 billion. It is expected that with the continuous development of 5G in the future, the global consumption of RF front-end chips will increase to 13.5 billion in 2023.

At the same time, according to the statistics of QYRElectronicsResearchCenter, from 2010 to 2018, the global RF front-end chip market has grown at an average annual rate of 13%, reaching 14.91 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, 189.7 U.S. dollars in 2020, and 31.31 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. The five-year compound growth rate is as high as 16%.

The development of 5G is also empowering the RF front-end industry.

The RF front-end chip is the core component of mobile intelligent terminal products. The pursuit of low power consumption, high performance, and low cost is the main driving force for its technological upgrade, and it is also the main direction of chip design and development.

The future of the RF circuit is huge, mainly due to:

1. The RF track has continuous growth.
All devices that access the mobile Internet require RF front-end chips. As the number of networked devices continues to increase, the RF chip market continues to grow.
According to Yole data, the global mobile terminal RF front-end market in 2018 was 15 billion U.S. dollars, and it is expected to reach 25.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, with a CAGR of 8% in 7 years.

2. Industry chain companies have high flexibility.
Every time the communication system is upgraded, it is an opportunity to increase the value of radio frequency chips.
5G mobile phones must take both 2/3/4G into consideration. Therefore, while 5G mobile phones retain 2/3/4G radio frequency chips, the radio frequency chips supporting the new 5G frequency band are a new increase.
Skyworks data shows that the value of 2G mobile phone RF front-end chips is US$3, 3G mobile phones are up to US$8, high-end 4G phones are US$18, and 5G mobile phone RF chips are valued at US$25-30.

3. High-quality companies have the potential to become global leaders.
Domestic RF chip manufacturers started with relatively mature discrete RF chips. During the window period before the widespread popularity of 5G mobile phones, they gradually realized the import substitution of low-end RF front-end models, while accumulating module capabilities, and gradually moving towards full-category supply.

Leading RF companies have emerged in China and are expected to gradually become the global leader in RF chips in the future.