News

15 February 2010

 

RFMD introduces PowerSmart power platforms for multimode, multi-band cellular RF architectures

RF Micro Devices (RFMD) Inc of Greensboro, NC, USA has introduced PowerSmart power platforms for multimode, multi-band cellular RF architectures. The platforms feature a revolutionary new RF Configurable Power Core, which leverages industry-leading functional efficiency and delivers state-of-the-art processing of all known cellular communications modulation schemes, including GSM/GPRS, EDGE, EDGE Evolution, CDMA, 3G (TD-SCDMA or WCDMA/HSPA+) and 4G (LTE or WiMAX), says the firm. PowerSmart power platforms cover bands 1-6 and 8-10.

The RF Configurable Power Core at the heart of each PowerSmart platform incorporates all power amplification and RF power management functionality. PowerSmart platforms also include all necessary switching and signal conditioning functionality in a compact reference design, providing smartphone manufacturers a single scalable source for the entire cellular front end.

PowerSmart is modulation scheme agnostic and can support four bands of GSM/GPRS or EDGE and up to five bands of TD-SCDMA, WCDMA/HSPA+, LTE, WiMAX or CDMA - all within a product footprint that is 35% smaller than today's highest volume quad-band solutions, claims RFMD. In a real-world comparison, versus today's highest volume triple-band 3G solution using power amplifier duplexer (PAD) modules, PowerSmart reduces board space requirements by greater than 40%.

Eric Creviston, president of RFMD's Cellular Products Group (CPG), said: "RFMD's PowerSmart power platforms deliver smartphone manufacturers enhanced performance and improvements in value and solution size that are unmatched in the cellular RF industry. PowerSmart platforms process all known cellular modulations at optimum performance, with superior energy efficiency and at the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. We anticipate significant customer adoption this year as PowerSmart enables global 3G/4G penta-band implementations with product footprints that are smaller than those of triple-band solutions. With pricing below competitive penta-band WCDMA solutions and a revolutionary architecture that enables both global platform manufacturing and real-time RF configurability of individual smartphone models, PowerSmart is indeed smart power for smartphones."

According to RFMD, PowerSmart platforms help to extend battery life and significantly reduce average thermal dissipation by maximizing efficiency across power levels, across data rates (voice-only to LTE) and during non-ideal load conditions, also known as "antenna mismatch."

Each PowerSmart platform utilizes a standardized digital interface (SDI) and is optimized to mate with leading multi-band HSPA+/EDGE/GPRS RF transceivers.

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