Nujira development system enables energy efficient smartphones for global markets

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND: Nujira, the world’s leading provider of Envelope Tracking technology, announced the availability of a new wideband Envelope Tracking (ET) Flexible Development System (FDS) for characterising energy-efficient power amplifiers for global cellular frequency bands. Major handset partners have already taken delivery of this system, which will be demonstrated by Nujira at the IMS/MTT-S conference in Baltimore, Maryland, June 7-9.

The Nujira NCT-T9101 Coolteq Flexible Development System (FDS) enables operation and characterisation of ET Power Amplifiers (PAs) at any RF frequency from 200 MHz to 2700 MHz, covering all major cellular bands worldwide, as well as most digital broadcast and military communications frequencies. The system can be readily configured to support the development of a wide range of transmitters, including 3G/4G smartphones, USB dongles, base stations, digital TV transmitters and military radios.

Designed as a lab instrument for the development and characterisation of Envelope Tracking PAs, the FDS generates simultaneous RF and Envelope waveforms which can either be user-generated from arbitrary I/Q waveforms, or selected from a predefined library of 3G and 4G standards.

Envelope signals are output from a Flexible Envelope Port (FEP) interface module, supporting both analogue (handset) and digital (infrastructure) envelope formats standardised by the OpenET Alliance. Comprehensive PC-based software supports real-time measurement and analysis of PA efficiency, linearity, and AM:AM/AM:PM distortion, and the system can optionally be configured to include Nujira’s Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) algorithms running in hardware or software.

Using the new FDS, Nujira has demonstrated that a single standard handset PA can deliver 50 percent efficiency across the 1500 to 2100 MHz frequency band, covering 12 LTE bands with a single PA and halving the energy consumption of the transmitter when compared to traditional DC:DC converters. By enabling broadband, converged PA devices, which replace the five or six single-band PA modules used in today’s smartphones, Envelope Tracking can significantly reduce handset size, cost and power consumption.