1. Purpose and scope
In RF products the technology is a design decision, not a given. A transceiver with digital control may sit best in CMOS; switches and low-noise amplifiers often use RF silicon-on-insulator; millimetre-wave transceivers often use silicon-germanium BiCMOS; handset power amplifiers commonly use gallium arsenide; and high-power or high-frequency amplifiers increasingly use gallium nitride. Each choice brings its own foundries, design kits, wafer sizes, costs, supply positions and model maturity.
This stage matches each function in the architecture to a technology, decides how many dies the product needs, and checks that the chosen design kit's device and passive models can be trusted at the frequencies, powers and temperatures the product uses. Where they cannot, it plans test structures to measure devices and passives before design commits. It ends at technology selected, where the kit version is identified, and the product plan agreed, where the business commits to development with the cost and supply that follow from the choice.
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