Qorvo and NanoSemi show Ultra-Wideband Linearisation at IMS 2016
RF company Qorvo in conjunction with NanoSemi, a developer of digital linearisation and compensation algorithms, has demonstrated what they believe are industry-leading ultra-wideband linearisation results with its GaN power amplifiers for wireless infrastructure.
Qorvo's QPA2705 is an integrated GaN driver and GaN Doherty power amplifier with 30dB gain, P3dB of 44dBm, PAE of 35 percent at 37dBm average output power in a compact 6x10mm surface mount package for next generation massive MIMO applications.
Using QPA2705 integrated GaN driver and GaN Doherty power amplifier with NanoSemi's proprietary digital compensation algorithms, the two companies have achieved an Adjacent Channel Power Ratio (ACPR) of -58dBc at a signal bandwidth of 60MHz for a carrier configuration of 3x20 MHz LTE; and an ACPR of -55dBc at 100MHz for a configuration of 5x20 MHz LTE.
Cellular operators are enhancing wireless spectrum efficiency and boosting network capacity by more than 500 percent by adopting technologies including Massive Multi-input Multi-output (MIMO), Active Antenna Systems (AAS) and LTE-Pro.
By combining Qorvo's new power amplifier (PA) modules with NanoSemi's Digital Pre-distortion (DPD) intellectual property, operators are able to implement highly efficient, small form-factor Massive MIMO transceivers for next-generation base stations, says Qorvo.
Sumit Tomar, general manager of Qorvo's Wireless Infrastructure business unit said: "Active Antenna Systems with 64 transceivers pose significant challenges to design power amplifiers with the small form factors, high efficiency and linearity needed for multi-carrier configurations. The combination of Qorvo's ultra-compact advanced PA modules and NanoSemi's DPD IP enables customers to implement high efficiency, smaller form-factor Massive MIMO transceivers suitable for next-generation base stations."
Helen Kim, CEO of NanoSemi said: "We are excited to collaborate with Qorvo and demonstrate best-in-class results with our Digital Compensation Technology. NanoSemi's unique approach to digital pre-distortion (DPD) and CFR enables our customers to tune their products to the sweet spot of performance, resource needs, power and targeted bandwidth."
NanoSemi and Qorvo have also demonstrated linearization of the QPA2705 cascaded Doherty driver amplifier and QPD2730 dual-channel GaN Doherty PA final stage with -58dBc for 60 MHz LTE signals, and -55 dBc for 100MHz LTE signals.
Qorvo will be demonstrating GaN power amplifiers for base station infrastructure at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS), May 22-27 in San Francisco.
