hf/rf ZONE Products for the week of February 24, 2003
Agilent says . . .
ACPM7813/7833/7891: Power Amplifier Modules Extend
Battery Life By Up To 15%
New E-pHEMT Power Amplifiers Provide Industry's Best Power-Added
Efficiency for CDMA and GSM Phones
Agilent Technologies Inc. introduced a new series of power amplifier (PA) modules designed for next-generation CDMA and GSM mobile handsets. Agilent's new E-pHEMT (enhancement-mode pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility transistor) PA modules provide the industry's best power-added efficiency (PAE) for CDMA and GSM phones, and allow manufacturers to increase mobile phone battery life by as much as 15 percent, a critical feature in today's multi-function phones.
Agilent's E-pHEMT process provides the industry's best PAE, a measure of how much power it takes to amplify a signal for transmission to a base station. Higher PAE increases battery life, especially "talk time." Agilent estimates that the E-pHEMT PA modules can increase talk time by as much as 30 minutes on a single battery charge. Agilent also has engineered the new devices to deliver industry-leading reliability, using a new passivation technique in the manufacturing process. The process yields products that offer 100,000 years mean time to failure at +90 C of continuous use.
"The industry-best power added efficiency of our new E-pHEMT power modules allows our customers to offer additional features while maintaining battery life, or to offer phones with much longer battery life," said Bryan Ingram, vice president and general manager of Agilent's Wireless Semiconductor Division. "Along with our FBAR filters, embedded camera modules, infrared transceivers and blue LEDs for backlighting, the new PA modules position Agilent as a major player in future mobile handset designs. These E-pHEMT components are a product of our technical innovation at Agilent Labs."
Agilent announced three E-pHEMT PA modules, two for CDMA/AMPS handsets and one for GSM. Of the CDMA modules, the ACPM-7813 addresses the 800 MHz dual-mode band, while the ACPM-7833 operates in the 1900 MHz (PCS) range for handsets and wireless data terminal applications. The ACPM-7891 PA module is targeted at tri-band GSM/GPRS phones.
The CDMA modules offer an industry-best PAE rating of 40 percent, with
E-pHEMT technology that requires only a single positive power supply. Higher
efficiency also permits the use of smaller batteries to make room for additional
features in handsets, data cards and PDAs, such as GPS emergency location,
embedded camera modules and multi media services. In addition, the PA provides
extremely high signal quality, which is a function of the amplifier's linearity.
This is vital to CDMA because its complex signal transmission requires highly
accurate signal reproduction. Further, E-pHEMT has excellent low voltage
operation and is well positioned for next-generation 3G systems that may
use lower battery voltages.
analogZONE Says . . .
Agilent has developed a true enhancement-mode pHEMT process that has a very low drain-source current and excellent linearity - and just those two characteristics beat the socks off GaAs HBT processes that seem to be the norm in the industry. The process also offers gain that is independent of the bias current and a very high mismatch survivablity.
The example that I looked at here with this release was the most complex, the ACPM-7891 tri-band power amplifier module. The module provides 60% PAE at +35 dBm for EGSM and 56% PAE at 32.5 dBm for both DCS1800 and PCS1900 in a 26-pin SMT package. The DCS/PCS inputs/outputs and supplies share common terminals and there are intelligent selections for isolating ground pins around the package.
The part is for a nominal 3.5-V rail and uses a power control voltage range from 0 V to within 300 mV of the rail. The module is fully matched for 50 ohms in and out and requires only decoupling and output blocking. The input VSWR on all bands is 1.5 typical and the module can take the industry-standard 10:1 mismatch without damage or permanent degradation. It also meets the -36 dBm parasitics standard with an 8:1 mismatch.
In the EGSM mode the gain at +35 dBm output is 33 dB and in the off mode this output drops to -40 dBm. The noise power in the receive band of 925 MHz to 935 MHz is a maximum -72 dBm and is -82 dBm from 935 MHz to 960 MHz. Harmonics are all below -5 dBm.
In DCS and PCS modes harmonics are also all below -5 dBm while the noise power is better than -77 dBm on the DCS receive band of 1805 MHz to 1880 MHz and the PCS receive band of 1930 MHz to 1990 MHz. Performance is also guaranteed for the GPRS Class 10 (2-slot) transmit operation at both 900 MHz and 1750/1880 MHz.
This is a hugely competitive arena but Agilent is offering that extra battery life which so important a characteristic for consumer appeal. And the parts are priced such that even the ACPM-7891 will be very competitive even if used as a dual-band solution.
The other products being offered are the ACPM-7813 CDMA 800 MHz PA module with +28.5 dBm output power at 3.4 V and the ACPM-7833 CDMA PA module for the PCS frequency range with + 28.5 dBm output power at 3.4 V.
All three PA modules are sampling and are all priced at less than $2.00
in high-volume quantities. Agilent also expect to be sampling a W-CDMA with
similarly high PAE by mid 2003. Preliminary data sheets are available on
request.