15 February 2017

Sivers IMA launching SiGe-based 16+16 beam-forming transceiver RFIC chip for 60GHz WiGig

At the 2017 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain (27 February – 2 March), Sivers IMA of Kista, north of Stockholm in Sweden (which makes microwave and millimeter-wave components used in telecom links, radar sensors and test & measurement equipment) is launching the TRX-BF01, a carrier-grade WiGig/802.11ad-compliant 16+16 beam-forming transceiver RFIC targeting datacom and telecom network infrastructure applications. The TRX-BF01 can be used in high-speed fixed wireless access (FWA), meshed networking and backhaul as well as fronthaul solutions. It is currently supporting the 60GHz V-band.

The continued 10x growth in mobile data traffic until 2022 (according to the Ericsson Mobility report of November 2016) is pushing the boundaries for new and innovative wireless solutions, says the firm. WiGig, millimetre-wave and beam-forming will be vital technologies to support this growth, it adds.

The TRX-BF01 has 16 Tx +16 Rx digitally controlled beam-forming channels, all in one chip. It includes all building blocks in silicon germanium (SiGe), in a small 12.5mm x 12.5mm embedded wafer-level ball grid array (eWLB) capsule. The built-in full phase-locked loop (PLL) and voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) are claimed to have excellent phase noise and hence offer best-in-class error vector magnitude (EVM) performance and can be used with 64 QAM single carrier modulation, compliant to the 802.11ad standard, allowing for speeds up to 7Gbps in air. Compared with many CMOS RFICs for millimetre-wave frequencies, SiGe offers more than 100 times higher output power per Tx channel in some cases, it is reckoned.

Prototypes of the new chip are available to key customers and partners in second-quarter 2017.

See related items:

Sivers IMA uses SiGe to launch first transceiver chip supporting FCC's new V-band

Tags: SiGe

Visit: www.siversima.com