Radio Frequency (RF) specifically refers to electromagnetic waves with a frequency ranging from 30 MHz to 300 GHz. As the core carrier of wireless technology, it is widely applied in wireless communication, meteorological monitoring, radar imaging, satellite transmission and many other fields. Integrated circuits and modules developed based on RF technology have been extensively embedded in various software and hardware products, including smartphones, satellite devices, Bluetooth terminals, Wi-Fi equipment, vehicle-mounted electronics, radar systems and consumer electronics.

Terminology Introduction

· Frequency: It refers to the number of complete oscillation cycles of an electromagnetic wave per second, with the unit of Hertz (Hz). It is a core parameter that indicates the oscillation rate of electromagnetic waves.

· Carrier Signal: A carrier is a high-frequency oscillating signal, which is mainly used to carry low-bandwidth valid information such as voice and data. Low-frequency baseband signals cannot be transmitted over long distances directly. With modulation technology, baseband signals are loaded onto high-frequency carriers. Leveraging the short wavelength and easy radiation characteristics of carriers, long-distance wireless transmission can be realized.

· Modulation: As a core technology of RF communication, modulation means changing the amplitude, frequency or phase of a high-frequency carrier to encode valid baseband information into the carrier signal, so that the signal can propagate in free space in the form of electromagnetic waves.

RF Power and Measurement Units

The power of RF signals varies in an extremely wide range, from high-power signals at the transmitting end to microwatt-level weak signals at the receiving end. Using linear units such as Watts will result in numerous trailing zeros and complicated conversion. Therefore, logarithmic scale units are universally adopted in the industry to measure RF signal parameters.

·  Decibel (dB): A dimensionless logarithmic unit used to express the relative ratio of two quantities such as power and voltage. It greatly simplifies the measurement and comparison of signal parameters with a huge dynamic range.

·  dBm: The standard absolute unit for measuring signal strength in the RF field, which takes 1 milliwatt (mW) as the reference power. Core conversion rule: the conversion coefficient is 10 for power-related parameters, and 20 for voltage-related parameters.

Mainstream Applications