I wrote an article for TheFeature about two recent University of Michigan announcements that could lead the way to a mobile phone on a chip.
[T]oday's mobile phones — not including ones that have non-traditional form factors — have become about as tiny as human anatomy allows. Does that mean miniaturization is coming to an end? For the phones themselves, the answer is probably yes. For the components inside the phone, the answer is definitely no.
The advantages to shrinking and integrating the internal components of mobile phones are obvious. Component miniaturization means that manufacturers can pack more functions into phones, and integration ultimately leads to lower manufacturing costs.
At the Wireless Integrated Microsystems Engineering Research Center (WIMS ERC) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, two different research projects — one involving antennas and the other involving frequency resonators — could help achieve a long sought-after goal — a true single-chip wireless transceiver.
