Editor's note: Even though its summertime, news from the Microwave industry remains quite active in both military and commercial markets with announcements of contract wins, new products, M&A activity and more. We offer this light version of this weeks news as a reminder to enjoy the lazy days of summer.
From Raytheon
Stimulus money can still be found
As Raytheon breaks new ground
To deploy 700 Megahertz LTE
Dedicated to serving public safety
From Suncastle Microwave
A new antenna with decade-plus bandwidth and high gain
Will help extend the coverage range
Of UAVs on special missions
Thanks to Suncastle Microwave’s recent innovation
From L3 Telemetry-East
To ensure interoperability in aeronautical telemetry
Air Force ground receivers will get an upgrade from L3
A new IRIG standard utilizes C-band
In a down-conversion architecture used across the land.
From Tektronix
To help debug ASICs and FPGAs that are complex
Veridae Systems was acquired by Tektronix
Supporting multi-device systems with enhanced visualization
And shortening the time needed for system validation
From Integral Systems
Installation of Integral System’s SAT-DSA is now complete
And helping Elettronica Industriale of Italy to compete
Through better traffic maintenance and RF interference identification
The company can offer the best broadcast quality in that nation
From Roke Manor Research
For tactical deployments of the military kind
A portable, long range 3G base station was hard to find
Until Roke Manor launched “Battlefield Connect” for ad-hoc communications
To help spectrum overload in both peace-keeping and special operations
From Rohde & Schwarz
As TDD version of LTE fights for market share
Network providers and device OEMs must test their wares
So this week R&S and China Mobile signed an agreement
To collaborate on an end-to-end TD-LTE test environment
Friday, July 8, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
ABI Research Teardown: Samsung Galaxy S II Shows Interesting RF Design-ins
I received this ABI Research promo today and found some interesting RF findings in the Samsung Galaxy S II, a new flagship member of Samsung's Android smartphone lineup. As part of its new Teardown Research Service, ABI Research has dismantled, analyzed, and tested the device down to the component level. If you are looking to keep up with the latest technology in 2011, the Galaxy S II is a good place to start.
According to ABI Research vice president of engineering James Mielke, “Samsung started from scratch with this phone: almost every component is new. Its application processor is the most powerful on the market at present. It is the first to use the Samsung Exynos 4210 dual-core application processor (a competitor to NVIDIA’s dual-core Tegra 2). The name Exynos combines Greek words for ‘smart’ and ‘green,’ indicating Samsung’s energy-efficiency goals for the design.”
Major changes include:
- Exynos dual-core apps processor. 118.8 mm2 die size with amperage specs roughly similar to the Tegra 2
- New single-packaged multi-band multi-mode PA from RFMD
- New CMOS-based antenna switch
- New lower-power XMM6260 cellular chipset from Infineon
Mielke sums up: “Samsung took many risks by combining all these new technologies into one phone. But ABI Research believes those risks will pay off; the Galaxy S II sets a new benchmark for almost every category on which a smartphone is measured.”
ABI Research’s “Samsung Galaxy S II Teardown” report provides detailed photos, process evaluation, and part descriptions for all of the major components such as power amplifier, power management, baseband processor, RF, Bluetooth, GPS, WiLAN, and many discretes. Tying all this information together are unique circuit board photos, performance measurements, cost information, and board area data.
RFMD has been promoting the use of their newer multi-band, multi-mode PAs and it has paid off in this design-in. This is the future of PAs that can support many bands with one device especially as LTE will add many new bands to the already numerous ones current phones have to support.
Microwave Journal has also reported that lower cost CMOS switches have now achieved performance on par with GaAs switches for lower power applications and would make their way into handsets very soon. And here they are!
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