RF transceivers for small 4G base-stations

8 July 2009 Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT

Analog Devices is adding to its RF portfolio with the announcement of new integrated RF-to-digital baseband transceivers. The AD9356 and AD9357 integrated transceivers target low-cost base-station designs and deployments for 4G technology, such as WiMAX and LTE (long term evolution).

Using a single transceiver across multiple base-station platforms (picocell and microcell) can greatly simplify the hardware design cycle. The new transceivers’ configurability allows designers to develop and maintain configurable software to support multiple platforms (ie, operators, transmit power levels, frequency bands, channel bandwidth).

The transceivers integrate 12-bit ADCs, DACs, complete RF-receive and RF-transmit signal chains, and on-chip frequency synthesisers. Embedded realtime control and calibration loops significantly reduce factory calibration and test times. The new transceivers combine to support beam forming applications and include two complete receivers, as well as two complete transmitters for the support of MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) deployments.

The transmitter’s signal-to-noise ratio provides support for picocells and microcells from +13 dBm up to +36 dBm output power at the antenna port, while meeting the demanding requirements for 4G base stations. Designers can optimise receiver performance by configuring the transceivers to use a flexible, on-chip AGC (automatic gain control) algorithm. The transceivers include hooks for using incumbent baseband-controlled AGC.

The AD9356 and AD9357 support the 2,3–2,7 GHz and 3,3–3,8 GHz ranges, respectively, covering existing WiMAX bands and channel bandwidths of 3,5; 4,375; 5; 7; 8,75 and 10 MHz. An excellent noise figure of 3 dB and high linearity should enable the devices to achieve good real-world performance as WiMAX/WiBro and LTE network traffic increases.

ADI’s proprietary ‘smart partitioning’ architecture supports autonomous AGC, TPC (transmit power control), and calibration routines that reduce the RF driver development effort. Additionally, the transceivers feature a factory calibration technique, and the highly accurate closed-loop power control delivers 1-point factory calibration of transmit power.

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