Common SMP Adapters for RF Filters

SAW filter is a filter that uses acoustic waves on the surface of piezoelectric materials to filter out clutter. This type of SMP Adapter product has low insertion loss, excellent suppression performance and low cost. It is mainly focused on the frequency band application between 10MHz and 3GHz, but it is easily affected by temperature changes. In order to improve the temperature characteristics of SAW, a temperature compensation film is added to the surface layer, and the SMP Adapter is made into a TC-SAW filter. This type of product is more complex than the common SAW filter structure and process, and its manufacturing cost is relatively high.

                                                    
FBAR is a thin-film and micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) technology branch of bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters. The operating frequency of FBAR can be as high as 10GHz, which can withstand higher power, has higher reliability and Q value, and SMP Adapter is less sensitive to temperature changes, suitable for 5G communication filtering with high frequency and large bandwidth requirements. However, its manufacture requires the use of difficult film deposition and micromachining techniques, and the price is several times that of SAW filters. With the vigorous development of 5G communication and the increase of IoT access devices and other near-field connection methods, SMP Adapter will gain unprecedented development space in the RF filter market.

At present, smartphones are still the blue ocean of SMP Adapter consumption (accounting for about 80% of the market), and due to consumers' reliance on high-quality communications, the consumer market of 5G mobile phones will have broader consumption prospects. According to statistics, to achieve 2G+3G+4G+5G global communication, more than 90 frequency bands may need to be supported, and one frequency band usually requires two filters, which also means that a 5G mobile phone may require hundreds of SMP Adapters and filters . At present, the number of SMP Adapters required for a 4G mobile phone is only more than 30, and the global SMP Adapter RF filter market space in the 5G period will reach 2-3 times that of the 4G period. In terms of price, the average value of a single mobile phone SMP Adapter RF device in the 4G era is US$7.5. 5G communication puts forward higher requirements for the size, frequency and bandwidth of the SMP Adapter RF device, and the demand for FBAR will increase significantly. It is expected that a single mobile phone The value of the medium filter will reach 8~12 dollars.

It is predicted that the global SMP Adapter RF filter market size will increase to US$13 billion in 2020, and the filter market will increase to US$16.3 billion by 2022. Throughout the industry chain of RF filters for mobile communications, the key upstream raw materials mainly include two categories, one is piezoelectric wafers (the commonly used piezoelectric materials for SAW are lithium tantalate, lithium niobate, etc., and the commonly used piezoelectric materials for FBAR are Aluminum nitride, etc.), the other is ceramic substrates, and the upstream material industry chain is mainly concentrated in Japan.

                                              
The midstream is the device manufacturing segment, mainly concentrated in Japan and the United States. The downstream market is mainly driven by the demand for mobile smart terminals such as smart phones, VR equipment, and in-vehicle terminals. Among them, SMP Adapter RF filters are used the most in smart phones, and the application companies are mainly in China.