24 February 2016

Qorvo secures multiple mobile Wi-Fi design wins

Qorvo Inc (which provides core technologies and RF solutions for mobile, infrastructure and defense applications) has secured more than a dozen design wins at leading manufacturers of performance-tier smartphones with its rapidly expanding family of mobile Wi-Fi front-end modules (FEMs) including the RF Fusion Mobile Wi-Fi iFEM. Qorvo reckons that it is uniquely positioned to design and manufacture all the high-value components in the integrated front end, including high-performance filters, switches, low-noise amplifiers, and power amplifiers.

As Qorvo's newest RF Fusion Mobile Wi-Fi iFEM, the QM48184 integrates a premium bulk acoustic wave (BAW) Wi-Fi coexistence filter with 5GHz and 2.4GHz power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, switches, a diplexer, and a coupler, in a compact 4mm x 3mm package. The QM48184 is co-designed and tuned with a global chipset partner to provide what is claimed to be superior power output and linearity with low current consumption, helping smartphone makers to maximize data throughput while extending battery life.

The Wi-Fi coexistence filter in the QM48184 leverages Qorvo's proprietary LowDrift BAW technology to address the design challenges related to interference between Wi-Fi and the adjacent LTE bands 7, 40 and 41 in China, North America and elsewhere. The firm's coexistence filters deliver what is claimed to be superior insertion loss to enhance receive sensitivity, power-added efficiency (PAE) and power output, helping smartphone makers to extend battery life and maximize data throughput across the full 2.4GHz Wi-Fi spectrum. Qorvo says that all of its LowDrift and NoDrift premium BAW filters combine high performance and temperature stability to solve coexistence challenges unaddressed by other technologies.

The QM48184 also employs Qorvo's proprietary wafer-level packaging (WLP) and CuFlip flip-chip technology to reduce module size and enable space savings of up to 30% versus comparable discrete solutions in 2x2 MIMO configurations.

Qorvo's Wi-Fi portfolio also includes two pairs of FEMs designed for chip-on-board implementations. The RFFM8538 and RFFM8248 provide a complete solution for premium smartphones, including 2x2 MIMO support, while the RFFM8516 and RFFM8216 are optimized for performance-tier smartphones. Each pair consists of a 2.4GHz module and a complementary 5GHz module, offering manufacturers the flexibility to implement a dual-band or single-band Wi-Fi solution.

Qorvo is showcasing its expanding portfolio of RF solutions for smartphones, tablets and other high-performance mobile data devices at the 2016 GSMA Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain (22-25 February).

Tags: Qorvo

Visit: www.qorvo.com/rf-fusion