Peregrine and Murata integrate FR front end with SAW filters
Peregrine Semiconductor, founder of RF SOI (silicon on insulator) and Murata have announced the 2015 UltraCMOS Global 1 Initiative which integrates the PE56500 all-CMOS RF front-end solution and Murata filters.
"Last year at Mobile World Congress, Peregrine announced the industry's first reconfigurable RF front-end system, UltraCMOS Global 1, and proved that a CMOS power amplifier (PA) could compete with GaAs technology," says Jim Cable, president and CEO of Peregrine Semiconductor. "Peregrine's recent acquisition by our long-time partner Murata facilitates the 2015 UltraCMOS Global 1 Initiative and speeds the industry's transition to an integrated, all-CMOS RF front end."
"Over our 70 year history, Murata has established a reputation as a leading filter and RF module provider. Today, Murata holds over 45 percent of the world's surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter market and over 60 percent of the connectivity module market," says Norio Nakajima, executive vice president, director of communication business unit of Murata. "By combining Peregrine's Global 1 solution with Murata's industry-leading filters and module capabilities, we can offer the first completely integrated RF front-end solution from a single company."
Global 1 offers the entire wireless ecosystem many benefits, but one of the biggest advantages is its ease of tunability for LTE device manufacturers. Before Global 1, RF engineers would have to manually solder and tune the RF front end through a process known as discrete duplexer matching. This manual process could take anywhere from two weeks to one month-time that delayed the device's introduction into the market. Global 1 replaces discrete duplexer matching with a tunable matching network that optimises the PA match across the band.
With Global 1 and its supporting software, an engineer can simply plug in the device and use the software to tune the RF front end within a few hours. Additionally, the device remains reconfigurable and can be tuned to another frequency or band to meet market demand. This unique capability will be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2015.
The UltraCMOS Global 1 PE56500 is a fully integrated, reconfigurable 3G/4G cellular RF front-end that includes a multimode, multiband (MMMB) PA, PA tuning, post-PA switch and antenna switch in a single package. It has three monolithic MMMB linear PAs divided into low, mid and high band paths that cover 690-915 MHz, 1710-2100 MHz and 2300-2700 MHz respectively. Each of the three paths contain a tunable inter-stage and a final tunable matching network to optimise the performance of the multi-mode PA to the operating cellular band.
The PE56500 is configured through a MIPI RFFE v1.1 compliant digital interface. This enables tunable matching and bias optimization for optimal linearity and efficiency tradeoff. The configurable RF and bias minimize phone variations due to mode, frequency and production tolerances.
The all-CMOS RF front-end solution provides easy-to-use digitally controlled adaptation across modes and bands, high isolation to solve interoperability issues and scalability to easily support higher band counts with low-loss switching and tunability. Built on Peregrine's UltraCMOS 10 technology, the PE56500 combines Peregrine's proven RF-SOI switch and tuner technology with new CMOS PA capability that delivers raw performance equivalent to GaAs, according to the company.
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