Why is the bill of materials significantly lower than existing solutions?
The FENIX FNX14701 manages to integrate all the key blocks for the downconversion from RF to IF, channel selection, spurious suppression and gain control onto a single RF CMOS IC. As the FNX14701 uses a zero-IF architecture, the signal (in band III) is directly down-converted in a single stage to the baseband. Consequently, image rejection is not an issue and a simple wide-band filter can be used for out-of-band spurious suppression. Tracking filters with varactor diodes are not required. Also channel selection and in-band out-of-channel spurious suppression can be performed using a simple low pass filter. As this low pass filter has less stringent requirements, it can be integrated on-chip with lower Q components. Hence, there is no need for external IF SAW filters. Furthermore, the FENIX FNX14701 provides digital clocks at 8.192MHz, 12.288 MHz and 24.576 MHz to drive the IF ADC, audio DAC and baseband DSP respectively in numerous receiver designs. Consequently all reference frequenci
