RF Micro Devices Intros Highly Integrated and Scalable 3G/4G Cellular Front End Platform

RF Micro Devices (RFMD (News - Alert)) has unveiled an industry first highly integrated and scalable 3G/4G cellular front end platform – the RF6460 which is capable of nine band coverage. The solution can support up to five bands of 3G/4G and four bands of GPRS/EDGE.

 

RF Micro Devices (News - Alert) deals in design and manufacture of high-performance semiconductor components and its products provide enhanced connectivity and support advanced functionality in the cellular handset, wireless infrastructure, wireless local area network (WLAN), CATV/broadband and aerospace and defense markets.

 

RFMD has claimed that the ultra-compact ‘converged’ multi-band, multi-mode architecture (2G/2.5G/3G/4G) can offer best-in-class efficiency, eases implementation, shrinks solution size and reduces component placements compared to mode-specific and band-specific architectures. By having the capability to support nine bands the solution can simplify the design, reduces the cost and accelerates the implementation of 3G and 4G multi-mode mobile devices.

 

Eric Creviston, president of RFMD’s Cellular Products Group (CPG), said the RF6460 streamlines the design of 3G/4G multimode handset platforms by shrinking the solution size, reducing overall component count, and optimizing efficiency for all modes and power levels enabling platform providers and phone manufacturers to accelerate time-to-market of next-generation 3G and 4G multi-mode devices that can deliver greater talk times at lower costs and in smaller form factors.

 

The RF6460 consists of RF6260 multi-band, multimode power amplifier (PA) module, the RF6360 antenna switch module (ASM (News - Alert)) and the RF6560 front end power management integrated circuit (IC). Features like broadband multimode functions are derived from RF6260 and flexible power management IC is from RF6560. These functions make the front end platform to support implementation of up to five WCDMA/HSPA+/LTE (News - Alert) bands -- three high bands and two low bands -- and all four bands of GSM/GPRS/EDGE in 3G/4G multimode mobile devices.

 

The RF6460 platform uses two quadrature (or ‘balanced’) amplification paths (one low-band and one high-band) capable of operating in bands 1-6 and 8-10 while in WCDMA/HSPA+/LTE mode. The RF6460 platform also optimizes PA efficiency and linearity according to the needs of each mode of operation and utilizes patent-pending DC-DC conversion technology to intelligently and dynamically control PA operating conditions. Battery life is extended and average thermal dissipation is reduced by having maximum efficient power levels at all data rates (voice-only to LTE) and during non-ideal load conditions (also known as "antenna mismatch") by responding quickly to load and line transients.