The considerable growth of the radiocommunication markets is undoubtedly the major event of the 90's for the semiconductor industry worldwide. In a first stage, integrated circuit manufacturers have concentrated their efforts towards the handheld / mobile terminals segment for several reasons. On the one hand, the market size is much more attractive (the most conservative studies forecast up to 37 million subscribers in the year 2000 only for the GSM services). On the other hand, the handheld system requirements more naturally call for high integration to meet the customer demand for lower weight and more compact designs as well as to allow the lowest cost mass production of this consumer product. The base stations segment has different characteristics in terms of performance, constraints and market size but however represents a significant opportunity for RF integrated circuits. This paper reviews the RF specifications of GSM/DCS and DECT base stations considering the base to mobile and base to base communication links, and highlights several products that address these particular needs.
