RFMD extends market opportunity in handsets
By commencing production of transceivers, RFMD has effectively doubled the size of the market that is able to address within the handset market. The market for transceivers for GSM/GPRS cellular handsets is around $1.2-1.3 billion, roughly the same size as the cellular PA market.
RFMD estimates that it has a market share in cellular PAs of around 50%, and expects that its entry into the transceiver market will enable it to increase its overall dollar content per handset and outpace the rate of growth of the handset industry.
The transceiver provides handset manufacturers with a highly-integrated radio solution in a small form factor that helps reduce component count and total cost while providing superior radio performance. The Polaris contains the entire receive chain of the RF portion of the phone as well as the transmit chain as far as the power amplifier. The transceiver is designed to operate in conjunction with a power amplifier module and antenna switch.
The excellent linearity and superior performance characteristics of the SiGe foundry process used by RFMD to manufacture the transceiver result in very high receive sensitivity. This parameter, the primary determinant of dropped calls, is of critical importance to handset manufacturers and wireless service providers.
Alastair Upton, general manager of digital cellular products at RFMD, said that the company expects significant growth in demand for the Polaris transceiver this year. “We have begun to order production volume quantities of silicon wafers to support initial customers,” he said.
“Our entry into the market for cellular transceivers represents the beginning of what we expect will be significant share gains in handsets, beyond the PA,” said Eric Creviston, VP of wireless products. “Based on recent and existing design activity, we fully expect to gain share this year in the cellular transceiver market.”
The Polaris transceiver features a unique fractional N-based modulation architecture, which reduces transmit power consumption by approximately 30- to 50-percent, compared to today s standard transmit architectures, such as translational loop and direct IQ modulators.
The Polaris Total Radio transceiver implements both very low IF (VLIF) and direct conversion receive (DCR) architectures and provides selectable analog I/Q and digital baseband interfaces, which enables ease of implementation with multiple leading baseband solutions.
Additionally, by integrating voltage control oscillators (VCOs) and loop filter components, the Polaris transceiver provides customers superior levels of integration and a lower bill-of-materials (BOM) cost than most currently available solutions.
