Would the area of transceiver IC linking to an external antenna be easy to locate

If you take some kind of transceiver SoC IC then de-cap it would it be possible to easily locate the areas of the die which will allow one to locate the leads which go to the off die antenna(s) ? Assume that you are working with just the die and do not know where the antennas are located off die. So how easy would it be to locate on die the areas which are essential to RF communications systems such as power amplifier, modulation, oscillator and so on. I would tend to believe that where these integrated circuits are located one will find the trace/pin which leads to the antenna(s) yes ? The other question can a transceiver IC have two cores both sharing common IO integrated circuits but its own separate antenna ?

usually SoC IC solutions will have one baseband IC from qualcomm or other baseband IC manufacturers, a MCU, and all the rest of the parts such as amplifer, LNA, filter and each. i have never seen one whole radio done on single die. due to this, it will be easier for you to identify components and antenna ports when you de-cap.

Hello pragash. Would you mind sharing which essential baseband IC RF components would be found on the die and what would be found off die likely close to the antenna (assuming the antenna is off die) ?

thanks a lot for the details.

hi victor43,
i dont get your question. however, i will tell you which IC im talking about.

http://www.acalbfi.com/se/M2M-and-Wi...pan/0000005RP0


SL8090 is sierra wireless modem which uses qualcomm baseband IC,MCU(i dont know the vendor) and their own front end design.

Hi pragash. Thank you for the response. I think I understand now the confusion on my part my apologies. OK here is my question. Take the example of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 model processor SoC. This dual core IC has an integrated modem (baseband IC) for cellular communications yes ? Now suppose that main or default core of this Qualcomm SoC IC executes an Android OS and the other core executes a different OS or application. Can this second core have its own dedicated integrated modem (baseband IC) and antenna (though operating at different frequencies from the main core's baseband IC) ? If yes then would this second baseband IC be easily distinguished on die ?

hi victor,


i doubt you can have different OS in dual core IC. i think it wont work that way! Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 is modem which contains LTE, WiFi and bluetooth in it. you can clearly distinguish between LTE, WiFi and bluetooth RF front end,baseband and antenna if the schematic or circuit available to you.

Hello pragash.Thank you again. My question would be than could two different OS execute in a quad core Qualcomm SoC IC ? Also you had said you can clearly distinguish between LTE and WiFi and Bluetooth yes ? But would these front ends be required to be located on the top most layer of the SoC IC ? And would all of these front ends be within the same area on the same layer yes ?

Thank you

You questions sound still confused. The said SoC doesn't contain any RF front end circuit, just the baseband interface, as you stated yourself. In any modem design, the frontend has to be implemented by additional chip sets and various discrete components like inductors and capacitors, SAW filters, crystals.

No

yes

i have never seen anyone designed the whole cellular IC or WiFi (24dBm) and bluetooth (20dBm) in die/IC design. in most SoC, baseband IC will be connected the front end (separate component) in PCB. so the module will be in PCB which connecting baseband and front end. due to this, its easy to distinguish baseband, front end and antenna.