RF&WirelessBlog

Energy Micro takes on challenge of RF power reduction

It is an often-repeated mantra that the pressures on RF products are for smaller size, lower cost and reduced power consumption. But while the first two of these seem to broadly move in the required direction over time, following the RF version of Moore's Law, the truth is that although RF transceiver subsystems have become more sophisticated and more highly integrated over the past 5 years, no real improvement in power consumption has been achieved.

Now Energy Micro, founded in 2007 by former Chipcon CEO and co-founder Geir Førre, has pledged to disrupt this trend in 2011 by launching devices that equal present standards of integration while offering energy consumption figures four times lower than those available today. This is a feat that the young company has already achieved with its range of low-energy ARM Cortex-M3 based microcontrollers, and Førre sees no obstacle to repeating this in the RF domain.

EnOcean announces ASIC modules designed for energy harvesting

EnOcean has announced its third generation suite of energy-harvesting wireless modules, based upon the Dolphin ASIC, a platform supporting self-powered two-way wireless communications. The modules also feature very low power sleep modes, and the ability to self-power actuators such as water valves and air vents.

Dolphin employs the EnOcean Alliance wireless standard for wireless sensor networks. Because wireless building automation devices spend much of their time asleep, Dolphin-based modules have been designed to consume only 200nA when in sleep mode, meaning that they consume only around 10% of the power required by conventional low power radio modules. The platform allows OEMs to create energy-autonomous controls able to draw power from multiple ambient sources, such as solar, linear motion and thermal energies.

Nujira claims record for LTE transmitter efficiency

Nujira has reported efficiency levels of over 60% for an 880MHz LTE power amplifier based on its commercially available Coolteq power modulator and Digital Pre Distortion (DPD) solution.

The results, which Nujira believes to be the highest efficiencies ever recorded for an LTE signal. were achieved with a 20MHz 4-carrier WCDMA waveform at 880MHz with a 6.5dB peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). Using a Coolteq.h power modulator and a Coolteq.b Digital Pre-Distortion system, Nujira achieved output stage efficiencies of more than 60% with a peak value of 63% and excellent system linearity at 60W RF power. The efficiency results include conversion efficiency of the Coolteq.h modulator and are representative of a practical RF PA output stage.

Tim Haynes, Nujira CEO, said, “Spectrum clearance is now occurring on a worldwide basis due to the rollout of Digital TV Broadcast and these results demonstrate conclusively that the benefits of our technology are as impressive at these lower frequencies just as they are at 2GHz or 10GHz.”

Haynes continued, “These results demonstrate the flexibility of the Coolteq.h power modulator and Coolteq.b DPD system, which were both unchanged after being recently used to achieve similar results at 2.1GHz. This ability to deploy across very wide bandwidths is a unique capability that we offer with our Coolteq products and ultimately will allow global equipment suppliers to provide very wide frequency cover with a minimal set of RF PA products.”