Sumitomo Electric develops remote radio head for LTE base stations

TOKYO, JAPAN: Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd has successfully developed a remote radio head (RRH) used in a cellular base station for Long Term Evolution (LTE) service, the next generation mobile communication. With this RRH, Sumitomo Electric has realized a wireless output power of 80 W at 2.1 GHz at a low power consumption of less than 270 W, achieving the industry's highest class efficiency.

The next generation wireless broadband systems, such as LTE and WiMAX networks, have recently come into practical use. In these systems, a new design scheme has been increasingly implemented, where the wireless transceiver known as RRH is separated from the base station to be placed beneath the antenna. This scheme has now become the mainstream in this field for the following advantages:

* Locating the RRH closer to the antenna prevents the power loss caused while transmitting through a long cable. Consequently, the amplifier output to the antenna is lowered, and the total power consumption by the RRH is reduced.
* Conventionally, the base station main equipment needs to be installed near an antenna. With the independent RRH, this is not required, effectively increasing the options for the installation.

In response to this trend, Sumitomo Electric developed the RRH for a WiMAX base station in 2010. The Company has also developed this year a new RRH for an LTE base station by incorporating a higher efficiency power amplifier and the original pre-distorter. This newly developed RRH demonstrates a wireless output of 80 W at a lower power consumption of less than 270 W, achieving an improved efficiency of more than 30 percent.