Nujira is targeting its power management technology at next generation LTE mobile systems through technology partnerships with three semiconductor suppliers.
The Cambridge-based company has collaborated with RF Micro Devices to design a new type of high efficiency broadband power amplifier (PA) which covers seven frequency bands to be used for 4G LTE networks.
“The result is that the full cellular frequency range from 700MHz to 2.6GHz can be covered by just three PAs rather than as many as 12 to 20,” said Nujira’s CEO Tim Haynes.
Work with TriQuint Semiconductor has resulted in what Nujira claimed is the most efficient 2.1GHz PA for LTE and W-CDMA basestations.
In a third partnership, the company said its envelope tracking modules, called Coolteq.h, will now directly interface with Texas Instruments predistortion transmit processors, the GC5322/25.
According David Briggs, general manager of TI’s digital and radio products group: “Digital predistortion technology and Nujira’s envelope tracking technology are key enablers for energy-efficient basestations.”
Nujira will also be in Barcelona this month at Mobile World Congress as part of a drive to get its Coolteg.L intellectual property licensed into mobile phone chipsets.
First test silicon of the embedded handset technology was delivered last month and Nujira is supplying silicon to handset OEMs, PA manufacturers and chipset platform vendors as proof of concept.
According to Haynes, it can double the battery life of a 4G terminal RF front end compared with technologies in common use today.
“Our test silicon implementation allows ecosystem partners to evaluate the technology and to independently validate our efficiency claims before integrating it into their own devices,” said Haynes.
Nujira test results using the new silicon show that a handset PA with Coolteq.L is twice as efficient during HSUPA and LTE transmissions, and 1.5 times as efficient during W-CDMA transmissions, compared with the same PA without Coolteq, said Haynes.
See: Video: The 3 Minute Interview - Tim Haynes, CEO of Nujira