Anokiwave, Inc., a provider of highly integrated, cost-effective silicon-based IC solutions for the millimeter-wave (mmWave) and active antenna markets, has expanded its 4th generation high efficiency multi-band silicon IC family into the n260 and n259 bands. The new IC family pushes the levels of performance and cost to a point where network operators can start to accelerate the builds of energy efficient, low cost and small form factor mmWave 5G radios, for every 3GPP FR2 band.
The latest ICs in this family include:
- AWMF-0236 a quad channel, dual polarization beamformer IC
- AWMF-0218 a single channel intermediate frequency (IF) up/down converter IC
The two ICs are designed to work together as a complete IF to mmWave solution and to enable a 3GPPSource: Anokiwave compliant n260/n259 signal chain, with industry leading linear power, low DC power and noise figure, high instantaneous bandwidth of up to 1.4 GHz, and support for ultra-low error vector magnitude (EVM). The ICs also support 802.11ac and 802.11ax waveforms for private wireless networks.
The 3GPP n260 and n259 bands provide the largest contiguous spectrum available for 5G wireless service and are planned to be used in densely urban areas requiring ultra-high throughput and capacity. These new ICs paired with Anokiwave’s already released 24 to 30 GHz ICs (AWMF-0221 and AWMF-0210) provide original equipment manufacturers with the option to develop and provide single or multi-band mmWave 5G radios covering all 5G bands from 24 to 43.5 GHz.
The new ICs offer some unique features with system level benefits:
- Combination of industry’s highest linear power and power efficiency, enabling small and low-cost radios
- Lowest noise figure performance to support industry leading throughput
- Utilizes scalability and cost efficiencies of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) to bring “Handset Technology for Infrastructure”
- Patented ZERO-CAL function to eliminate the need for array level calibration, greatly increasing manufacturing line-yields and reducing radio cost
- Advanced digital and detection functions for array level optimization and DC power controls
- Kinetic Green for dynamic array and attenuator controls, which lower the array’s energy consumption
- Patented Fast Beam Steering for fast antenna beam directional change and 3GPP compliance
“These new ICs extend the innovations of our mmW Gen-4 silicon ICs to the higher n260 and n259 bands,” said Alastair Upton, Anokiwave chief strategy officer. “It is a very timely product release as network operators worldwide are starting to build 5G networks using these higher bands. With the high network efficiency and low cost of these ICs, operators can now truly achieve the vision of commercially viable mmW 5G networks.”