News

18 December 2008

 

TriQuint shipping 7mm x 4mm TRITIUM II PA duplexers for multi-band CDMA

RF front-end product manufacturer and foundry services provider TriQuint Semiconductor Inc of Hillsboro, OR, USA has started high-volume shipments of the TRITIUM II PA-Duplexer Module family (its latest RF module for mobile handset makers), which supports the CDMA 2000 (EV-DO) protocol.

The family includes the TQM663029A, (PCS band), the TQM613029 (cellular band) and the TQM653029 (AWS band). Together with TriQuint’s SP3T antenna switch, GPS LNA/filter module and RF filters, TRITIUM II PA-Duplexers provide a complete front-end solution for multi-band CDMA handsets.

The modules were developed using TriQuint’s own in-house technology assets, offering performance, cost and supply-chain benefits. Each module contains a transmit SAW (surface acoustic wave) filter, coupler, duplexer, biasing/regulator circuitry, internal matching and a high-efficiency amplifier (yielding the world’s most efficient integrated amplifier solution on the market, the firm claims, based on comparative talk-time measurements). As well as being half the size of solutions consisting of discrete components, the 7mm x 4mm second-generation TRITIUM II PA-Duplexer is also 30% smaller than the previous-generation TRITIUM PA-Duplexer.

According to Strategy Analytics’ June 2008 report on power amplifier (PA) market growth, TriQuint’s ability to shrink the module size is setting an industry standard, resulting in significant market share gains (nearly doubling in just two years). TriQuint says that the TRITIUM PA-Duplexer architecture is quickly gaining mass market acceptance. In third-quarter 2008, the firm’s WCDMA PA-Duplexer modules sales tripled over the previous quarter. “The TRITIUM II PA-Duplexers family expands TriQuint’s RF leadership in the fast-growing product segment for WCDMA and CDMA phones... Our customers tell us they appreciate the simplicity of using modules over discrete components,” says product marketing manager Mike Armentrout. The modules enable lay-out of one phone board to accommodate all tri-band and dual-band CDMA phone combinations. This offers scalability, reduced time to market and a 50% reduction in bill of materials (BOM) count/size versus discrete components, it is reckoned. “These benefits are critical for the next generation of phones, where size and performance are differentiating factors for handset customers,” he adds.

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