RF&WirelessBlog

Dual IF VGA for base station transceivers offer ‘best noise figure’

IDT has announced its FlatNoise dual intermediate frequency (IF) variable gain amplifier (VGA) for multi-mode 2G/3G/4G wireless base station transceivers. IDT says its devices offer the industry’s best noise figure (4 dB) for maximum gain and virtually no degradation when gain is reduced, improving quality-of-service (QoS) and easing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) requirements of the downstream data converter to reduce system cost.

Ubidyne to show active antenna system for 700MHz LTE at Mobile Word Congress

Ubidyne has announced that it will be featuring a new active antenna solution for the US LTE 700MHz digital dividend band at next month's Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona. The uB700 Antenna Embedded Radio with flexible beam forming and tilting capabilities has just completed independent network trials with a leading US mobile operator, reportedly delivering double throughput at the cell edge and an increase of over 40% cell capacity with the same output power. Ubidyne says these results show that operators can use active antenna technology to address the exploding demand for wireless data by maximising coverage and capacity from their existing macrocells before they need to invest in small cells.

In addition to the new uB700, Ubidyne's uB900 Antenna Embedded Radio supports GSM, UMTS and LTE in the 900MHz frequency band to address mobile networks in Europe, Africa, Oceania, Asia and the Middle East. Future products are also in development for the European digital dividend bands of 800MHz and highband up to 2.6GHz as well as multi-band solutions.

By removing the need for bulky coaxial feeder cables, remote electrical tilt assemblies and additional amplifiers on antenna towers and masts, Ubidyne says that its active antenna technology significantly reduces installation costs and energy consumption while improving radio performance, deployment flexibility, coverage and network capacity. OPEX costs and outages are further reduced by a self-healing mechanism that secures antenna coverage in the event of a system failure.

"The US trials show that active antennas can significantly increase cell capacity using vertical sectorisation and double the uplink throughput at the cell edge as well as increase the coverage area with independent uplink and downlink tilting," said Michael Fränkle, CEO of Ubidyne. "Active antenna technology offers end users a continuous service, while operators will save both CAPEX and OPEX costs; we have the potential to dramatically change the radio architecture and operations of mobile communications without migrating to small cells at tremendous cost. Active antennas have arrived and we are seeing increasing interest and demand from operators around the world."

Sweden gets world’s first LTE FDD/TDD Dual-mode commercial network

In a world first, ZTE and Swedish carrier Hi3G have announced that their commercial LTE FDD/TDD dual-mode network has gone live in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.
Hi3G says it is committed to upgrading its network to enhance the subscriber experience with significantly faster radio access speeds and a much more extensive range of data services. Hi3G signed this LTE network contract with ZTE in March 2011, to cover the whole of Sweden.

Low-distortion mixers improve system IM3 performance while reducing power consumption

IDT has released two low-power, low-distortion RF to IF mixers for cellular base stations. The company says that the new devices improve system third-order intermodulation (IM3) performance and reduce power consumption, resulting in improved quality of service (QoS) and enabling smaller enclosures with increased reliability in 4G wireless infrastructure applications.

Green Hills’ compilers and toolchain support Altair’s LTE Development

Green Hills has announced that Altair Semiconductor has used the company’s compilers, the Green Hills Probe and MULTI development tool chain, in the development of its 4G LTE products. Altair’s solution covers all variants of the LTE standard on a single chipset and software platform.

RFMD’s PAs power new smartphones

RF Micro Devices has started volume production of multiple 3G/4G power amplifiers in support of two smartphone families. The two most recent smartphones supported by RFMD feature RFMD's PowerSmart power platform and RFMD's RF724x family of ultra-high efficiency power amplifiers.
The first smartphone featuring RFMD's PowerSmart is a stylish, all-touch handset featuring a brilliant 3.2" high resolution display, a 5MP camera with flash and video recording, and preinstalled social networking apps for a smoothly integrated mobile experience. The second smartphone, featuring RFMD's RF7241, RF7242, RF7244, RF7245, and RF7258, is a powerful, full-featured smartphone with a high resolution touch display, a highly tactile keyboard, and a precise optical trackpad. The smartphone will be available in multiple triple-band 3G versions featuring RFMD's ultra-high efficiency 3G/4G PAs exclusively. Both smartphones are manufactured by a leading North America-based smartphone manufacturer.

3G over IP emulator covers all elements of luCs and luH interfaces

GL Communications has released its latest Emulation of 3G Protocols Over IP product, which emulates all elements involved in the IuCs and IuH interfaces: the RNC, MSC, Home NodeB (HnB - Femtocell), and Home NodeB (HnB) Gateway.
“The transition to an all IP infrastructure is not necessarily waiting for LTE (4G). Carriers are building out their 3G networks opting for IP (Internet Protocol) over ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) in the core network as well as the Radio Access Network (RAN),” said Karthik Ramalingam, Product Development Manager, GL Communications.

First public demo of Cavium’s base station-on-a-chip

Cavium is set to demonstrate its Octeon Fusion small cell base station on a chip technology in public for the first time later this week at the 4G World 2011 conference (October 25-27 in Chicago).

Picochip CTO: “London needs 70,000 small cells for world-class mobile broadband”

According to Picochip CTO Doug Pulley, for London to offer genuinely world-class, LTE everywhere mobile broadband, it will require the installation of 70,000 small cells across the capital, including 2,000 nodes covering the Underground network by 2015.

Indoor remote unit uses existing coax for 3G & 4G

At Mobile Broadband World in Berlin this week, TE Connectivity showed off its FlexWave Prism indoor remote unit, a new indoor version of its FlexWave Prism Distributed Antenna System (DAS) that uses existing coaxial cabling to bring 3G and 4G coverage to enterprises, college campuses, and urban/suburban macro networks. FlexWave Prism IRU uses rack-mountable, indoor remote units and works with coax cable direct to service antennas, so it is ideal for passive indoor wireless system upgrades or venues that want to deploy a system quickly by leveraging existing cabling.