RF Filters in 2025: choosing the right technology for performance, cost, and integration

By Ihor Pershukov, PhD, Technology & Cost Analyst, Radio Frequency at Yole Group for LAYERS, powered by EVATEC.

RF filters share a sizable number of components in modern RF frontend devices. In Yole’s recent Status of the RF Industry 2025 report, the overall filter market is valued at $8.2 billion in 2025. The RF Filter ecosystem is diverse, with many players and filter technologies.

Yole Groups reports, BAW filter Comparison 2025 and SAW Filter Comparison 2025, compared more than forty commercial filters from around twenty suppliers, including Broadcom, Murata, Qorvo, and Qualcomm, covering Automotive & Mobility, Industrial, Telecom & Infrastructure, and Mobile & Consumer equipment. Our analysis spans all mainstream surface acoustic wave (SAW) families – conventional, thermocompensated (TC-SAW) and multilayer (ML-SAW) – and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) architectures, namely FBAR, SMR, DBAR, and XBAW.

The arrival of 5G and Wi-Fi 6E/7 pushed demand for BAW filters, especially in medium- and highband paths. FBAR still yields the best radio performance but depends on costly cavity steps and 8-inch wafer lines. SMR removes the cavity, so unit cost falls with only a modest loss in selectivity. Both flows rely on aluminum nitride layers-poly-AlN or AlN doped with niobium or tantalum – and several makers now boast electromechanical coupling by moving to aluminum scandium nitride with more than 40 % scandium. BAW devices only use Sc-AlN, not lithium niobate. Since 2022, many OEMs have trimmed FBAR and SMR usage, trading a small hit in performance for lower bills of material.

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Yole Group would like to warmly thank Evatec for the opportunity to contribute once again.

For nearly 10 years, Yole Group has partnered with Evatec in the development of LAYER magazine. In this latest issue, we were pleased to share our insights on piezoMEMS technology, RF filters, and photonic solutions. We invite you to enjoy LAYER, issue #9, along with Yole Group’s contributions.

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Source: www.evatecnet.com