RFMD’s new RF1603A switch is optimized for switching applications requiring very low insertion loss and high power handling capability with minimal DC power consumption. The excellent linearity performance achieved by the RF1603A make it ideal for use in multimode cellular GSM/EDGE/WCDMA/CDMA/LTE applications.

Features

• 2kV HBM ESD protection on all ports
• Broadband performance covering all standard cellular frequency bands
• High linearity: IIP2 >120dBm

Applications

• Multi-mode GSM, WCDMA, CDMA, LTE band switching
• Antenna tuning
• Receive diversity switching

Pricing begins at $0.42 each for 10,000 pieces.

For more information on RF1603A, visit
https://estore.rfmd.com/RFMD_Onlinestore/Products/RFMD+Parts/PID-P_RF1603A.aspx.

Leuven, Belgium and Tokyo, Japan, February 23, 2011 – At this week’s International Solid-State Circuit Conference, imec and Renesas Electronics Corporation present a highly-linear reconfigurable transceiver, eliminating the need of surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters. The unique approach is a major breakthrough towards fully reconfigurable radios by relaxing the requirements of the antenna filters, which suffered today from limited flexibility due to the high filtering specs. The fully reconfigurable transceiver ‘Scaldio’ is compatible with multiple wireless standards including the fourth generation mobile broadband standard 3GPP-LTE.

The trend in wireless communication where terminals give their users ubiquitous access to a multitude of services drives the development of reconfigurable radios in deep-submicron CMOS. For emerging standards such as 3GPP-LTE, which use a broad range of operating frequencies and bandwidths, multi-mode capabilities of the radio are a must. Scaldio provides a solution to the handset manufacturers, which face the challenge of developing fully reconfigurable radios for a wide range of networks.

One of the major obstacles today in designing fully reconfigurable radios is making the antenna filters reconfigurable due to their stringent requirements. By making the Scaldio receiver highly linear, more out-of-band blocker interference can be allowed in the RF receiver, avoiding the need of SAW filters and consequently enabling a simplified antenna interface. With 3dB noise figure and capable of handling a 0dBm blocker at 20MHz offset, the receiver has the highest blocker resilience for low noise figures. The fully reconfigurable receiver also achieves the highest linearity (+10dBm IIP3, +70dBm IIP2), and frequency range reported up to now and handles blockers well in any mode.

The transmitter combines adaptive out-of-band noise filtering with voltage-sampling up-conversion to achieve RX band noise down to -162dBc/Hz allowing also here SAW-less operation. SAW-less transmitters become more and more important with the evolution towards future standards such as 3GPP-LTE where transmitters will need to operate in multiple FDD (frequency division duplex) bands.

The reconfigurable receiver and transmitter technology is suitable for mobile handsets and all kind of battery-powered wireless connectivity devices, as well as for base-stations for small cells, and can be programmed to meet the requirements for many standards and dedicated needs.

“We are pleased to have contributed to this major milestone of imec’s research program on fully reconfigurable radios using state-of-the-art CMOS technology,” said Yoshinobu Nakagome, associate general manager of Mixed Signal Core Development Division Technology Development Unit at Renesas Electronics Corporation. “This accomplishment is an important step towards our integrated RF solution for next generation multimode wireless communication systems. Based on these impressive results, we extended our research partnership with imec for 3 years.”

“We are honored that Renesas Electronics will continue to collaborate within our wireless communication program the coming 3 years. As one of the leading companies in next generation wireless communication, Renesas is an ideal partner to collaborate on the strategy and developing the technologies for future wireless communication systems,” said Liesbet Van der Perre, director green radio programs at imec.

Download the news release at http://www2.imec.be/be_en/press/imec-news/imecrenesasSDR.html. To download a high-resolution image, click on the url, then click on the photo.

Barcelona, Spain, February 15, 2011 — RF Micro Devices, Inc. today announced the addition of four new products to RFMD’s expanding portfolio of front end modules for 3G/4G switch and signal conditioning applications.

RFMD’s switch and signal conditioning product portfolio includes antenna switch modules, switch filter modules, switch duplexer modules, RF power management components, and low noise amplifiers. The four newly introduced products – the RF8889A, the RF1291, the RF1194A, and the RF1196 – are each optimized to solve the complex RF requirements of 3G/4G smartphones related to high band count and harmonics.

Eric Creviston, president of RFMD’s Cellular Products Group (CPG), said, “RFMD’s highly integrated, high-performance cellular front end modules solve our customers’ increasingly complex RF requirements and deliver unmatched ease-of-use benefits related to size, performance and platform flexibility by offering ascending levels of switch, filter and duplexer functionality within a single module. Importantly, our expanding portfolio of antenna switch modules, switch filter modules and switch duplexer modules is highly complementary to all of our power platforms and provide our customers a single scalable source for the entire cellular front end.”

The RF8889A and RF1291 single-pole 10 throw (SP10T) antenna switch modules (ASMs) deliver industry-leading linearity performance and excellent insertion loss for high-throw count applications and are compatible with reference designs from Qualcomm, Intel and ST-Ericsson. The RF8889A and RF1291 are specifically targeted at smartphone applications in which the coexistence requirements of multiple radio standards (GSM/WCDMA/LTE/WiFi/Bluetooth) place critical importance on switch linearity and harmonic performance.

The RF1194A switch filter module (SFM) delivers the linearity and insertion loss performance of the RF8889A and RF1291 ASMs and expands upon their functionality by adding GSM Rx SAW filters. The RF1196 switch duplexer module (SDM) delivers the switch and filter capabilities of RFMD’s ASMs and SFMs and expands upon their functionality by integrating a WCDMA band 1 duplexer. The RF1196 is first in a family of RFMD SDM products that significantly reduce total solution size by delivering complete front end integration of all switch and filter requirements in a single front end module.

RFMD offers the industry’s most innovative portfolio of radio frequency components, including cellular power amplifier modules, cellular transmit modules, antenna switch modules, switch filter modules, switch duplexer modules, and front ends for Wi-Fi, WiMAX and GPS applications. RFMD also offers an expanding portfolio of wireless infrastructure products, including the world’s most efficient broadband GaN power amplifier for 3G/4G base stations.

Industry’s most cost-effective smart-meter chipset combines configurable ‘measurement’ IC with separate smart sensor chips to boost performance and hardware scalability

Geneva, February 17, 2011 – As installations of smart meters in homes and businesses accelerate globally, STMicroelectronics has unveiled a new set of metering chips that offer the industry’s most accurate and cost-effective solution for next-generation smart meters.
 
Unlike traditional induction Watt-hour meters, which are vulnerable to wear and fraud and provide only limited features, smart meters, or electronic meters, are intelligent devices that have no moving parts and can support sophisticated tamper detection and two-way communication for improved grid management and billing. More specifically, smart meters allow automatic remote meter readings by power utility companies and make energy consumption transparent and directly manageable for consumers. Some eight million smart meters were shipped in the US in 2009, while Asia is predicted to become the world’s largest market by 2014, and large projects in Italy, France and Spain should help drive European installations beyond 100 million units by 2015.
 
“We believe that this new chipset is an important milestone that will cement ST’s leadership in delivering world-class smart-meter semiconductor solutions,” said Pietro Menniti, Group Vice-President and General Manager, Industrial Business Unit, Industrial and Power Conversion Division, STMicroelectronics. “The new STPMC1 and STPMS1/S2 chips, launched today, support a new modular approach that will offer greater accuracy and reduced costs in the development of leading-edge ‘poly-phase’ smart meters for industrial applications.”
 
Smart Grids and Power-Line Communications
Smart meters are a key enabler for the ‘Smart Grid’, a term that is widely used to describe the next generation of intelligent and digital networks that will add functions of monitoring, analysis, control and communication to the electricity grid to improve the reliability and efficiency, control costs and increase capacity. Smart grids are being designed to help meet the energy challenges of the 21st century, such as reducing consumption, managing energy from renewable sources, and handling the charging needs created by the increasingly widespread use of hybrid and electric vehicles.
 
In addition to smart meters, a key technology required to enable these intelligent and reliable networks is Power-Line Communications (PLC). ST’s PLC chip solutions have already been massively employed in major national smart-metering infrastructure deployments, along with state-of-the-art metrology chips, or ‘measurement’ chips.
 
Modulation and Metrology in Modular Meters
Smart meters include two main functions: a high-accuracy modulator for sensed current and voltage signals and a dedicated metrology processor to calculate energy consumption. In the next few years, smart-metrology functions are also expected to be widely adopted in home appliances, air-conditioning and power-supply systems. Single-phase metering chips such as ST’s existing solutions – the STPM01, STPM10 and STPM11/12/13/14 chips – effectively integrate these functions in a single component.
 
However, in three-phase, or poly-phase, smart meters for industrial applications, a modular approach that separates the current/voltage sensing from the metrology section can improve accuracy and economy. The modulator ICs in the sensing circuitry can be mounted closer to the measurement transducers to reduce the effects of noise. In addition, the same design can be re-used cost-efficiently in a range of metering products without redesigning the metrology section, simply by adding the required number of modulators.
 
New STPMC1 and STPMS1/S2 Poly-Phase Metering Chipset
Together, ST’s new STPMC1 and STPMS1/S2 create the industry’s most cost-effective chipset for modular smart meters, supporting 50-60Hz IEC and ANSI standards for up to 0.2-class AC Watt meters. The STMPC1 metrology IC, which has five input channels, accepts measurements from three phases with the option of using the fourth channel for tamper detection or temperature sensing, and the fifth channel to accept magnetic field information from a Hall sensor. The device can be configured and calibrated for any international distribution standard.
 
The STPMS1 and STPMS2 are dual-channel delta-sigma modulators that convert analog current and voltage values from each phase and transmit digital data to the STPMC1. They can be placed very close to the current sensor to avoid long analog tracks and high-noise capture. In addition, the reduced number of connections and the discrete implementation leads to the potential use of three shunt resistors via low-cost isolation on digital data paths, instead of using significantly more expensive isolated sensors. The STPMS1 has a first-order modulator, while the STPMS2 has a second-order modulator delivering enhanced accuracy.
 
Major product features:
 
STPMC1

• Supports Rogowski coil, current transformer, shunt or Hall-effect current sensing
• Ripple-free energy calculation algorithm
• OTP memory for configuration and calibration
• SPI interface

 STPMS1/S2

• Two sigma-delta modulators
• Programmable chopper-stabilized low-noise and low-offset amplifier
• Precision voltage reference: 1.23V and 30ppm/°C max
• Support IEC and ANSI standards up to 0.2 class AC Watt meters

Pricing and Availability
The complete chipset for a three-phase meter, comprising the STPMC1 and three STPMSx modulator ICs, is priced at $4.50 for 1000 sets. Further pricing options are available for larger quantities. The STPMC1 is in full production immediately. The STPMS1 and STPMS2 are sampling to lead customers now, with production availability expected shortly.

February 10, 2011 – RFMD’s new RF9802 and RF9801 build upon the successful RF716x GPRS family, incorporating full EDGE capability while maintaining a common footprint for ease of phone platform design. Using RFMD’s patented PowerStar architecture, RF9802 includes such features as Power Flattening, V_BATT Tracking, and EDGE Low Power Mode. RF9802 is the full Quad Band complement to the Dual Band RF9801.

    

Features

• Excellent power margin (34dBm low band P_OUT) for ease of design and calibration
• Scalability from dual-band to quad-band and GPRS to EDGE utilizing a series of pin-compatible modules
• Best-in-class EDGE linearity performance (high band -67dBc ±400kHz ACPR and <3% EVM)
• PowerStar control, including power flattening for low power and current variation, and V_BATT tracking for improved switching performance at low V_BATT

Applications

• GSM850/EGSM900/DCS1800/PCS1900 products
• 3V Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE handsets and mobile data products

RF9802 and RF9801 are released to Production and are sampling now. Please contact your RFMD sales representative or distributor for pricing.

Industry Leading Technology Enabling Next-Generation Smart Phones, Netbooks and Datacards; Solutions Allow Higher Data Rates and Always-on Connectivity

Barcelona, Spain—Feb. 14, 2011—Skyworks Solutions, Inc., an innovator of high reliability analog and mixed signal semiconductors enabling a broad range of end markets, today announced that its extensive LTE product portfolio continues to gain traction with leading handset OEMs and smart phone providers and is at the heart of several new, yet unreleased 4G devices slated for launch later this year. Skyworks enabled the world’s first commercial LTE device, Samsung’s high speed 4G USB modem, the world’s first mobile LTE handset, and several platforms from ST-Ericsson. Since then, Skyworks has secured additional design wins with HTC, among others, to power various 4G smart phones.

Today’s 4G platforms allow consumers to access and stream data and multimedia applications anytime, anywhere at higher data rates than previous generation networks. Skyworks’ family of LTE products provide the most complete and flexible set of options for manufacturers developing and building 4G-enabled handsets, basestations, wireless PC cards, and a host of other embedded solutions.

“Skyworks is delighted to be an industry leader in delivering solutions that ultimately offer consumers the best user experience, particularly in this age of always on connectivity,” said Dr. Gene A. Tkachenko, senior director of engineering at Skyworks. “By improving efficiency and performance, boosting network throughput, and simplifying roaming, Skyworks’ broad product portfolio is offering tangible benefits to handset OEMs and smart phone providers, as well as infrastructure suppliers and operators worldwide to ensure consumers have access to high-speed mobile broadband data and global coverage.”

According to the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), 180 operators are investing in LTE in 70 countries – with 17 networks already launched worldwide.

Barcelona (Spain) – February 14, 2011 – Imec presents a digital front-end component for low-cost and low-power spectrum sensing, paving the way to power-efficient cognitive radios and networks. The new results support industry’s search for increased flexibility and reliability for their next-generation wireless devices.

The accelerated deployment of broadband personal communication coupled with the continuously increasing demand for large data rates results in an increasing spectrum scarcity. A dynamic access to the available spectrum would increase the throughput efficiency significantly. In licensed bands scenarios, dynamic spectrum access would for example allow personal mobile terminals to seamlessly set-up and maintain a reliable wireless connection. In unlicensed bands (e.g. the crowded 2.4 GHz band), it would bring great added value to products for which interruptions in the connectivity cannot be tolerated, for safety reasons in a control system (e.g. surveillance camera’s), or for comfort reasons in real-time applications (wireless conferencing, hearing aids,…) as it would improve connectivity even in the presence of many competing and interfering networks.

However, current radio architectures are focused on the reception of a predefined channel, and cannot proceed to a frequency scan operation in a timely, cost- and energy-effective way. Imec’s cognitive reconfigurable radio solutions hold the solution for such next-generation flexible radios, as they enable multi-mode communication and spectrum sensing.
Imec’s new spectrum sensing component was designed as a versatile digital engine to meet a wide variety of use cases, at low cost and low power overhead. The chip, which hosts a dedicated ASIP (application-specific integrated processor), can perform both flexible synchronization and spectrum sensing for high-throughput WLAN (802.11a-n), cellular standards (including the recent 3GPP-LTE), and digital broadcasting standards.

The novel spectrum sensing component connects to imec’s in-house designed analog reconfigurable radio chip (SCALDIO) and imec’s programmable digital baseband platform conceived for 4G seamless connectivity (COBRA). As such, imec’s complete reconfigurable radio solutions enable multimode communication with efficient use of the spectrum.

Imec cooperates with K.U.Leuven and Vrije Universiteit Brussel in the project ‘Essences’, funded by the Flemish government agency for Innovation by Science and Technology, IWT, to conceive even lower power solutions for the future. The strategic basic research project also investigates the possible or desirable sensing capabilities from a business and regulatory point of view. Together with the protocol specialists from Ghent University, the improvements spectrum sensing can bring on the network level are researched within the strategic project ‘Next Generation Networks and Terminals’ and test-lab from the Flemish Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology, IBBT.  Moreover, imec is dedicated to boost the valorization potential of its sensing technology by teaming up with companies in Flanders that are developing high-tech wireless products.

“We are proud to announce these great results, which have been made possible thanks to the support of IWT and the cooperation with our research partners in Flanders. The relevance of these results is witnessed by the fact that several companies are already investigating the use of these spectrum sensing solutions to increase the quality and reliability of a wide variety of wireless applications,” said Liesbet Van der Perre, director green radio programs at imec.