MaxLinear and Qorvo today announced a combined solution that addresses the critical challenges for 32x32 and 64x64 massive MIMO radios – the size, weight and power consumption. This solution reduces the radio's power, weight and volume by enabling high-efficiency power amplifiers (PAs), making massive MIMO radios more practical. Additionally, this solution saves hundreds of watts per multi-element radio in both power consumption and wasted dissipated power.

The combination of MaxLIN Linearization Technology and Qorvo’s GaN high efficiency power amplifier, QPD0011J Doherty power amplifier driven by QPD0006, provides breakthrough line up power efficiency of 55.14% with excellent linearized performance (ACLR < -51dBc and EVM < 3%) at 41.5dBm (14W) with 30dB of gain and operating from 3.4GHz to 3.6GHz with 2xNR100MHz carriers.

This combination increases the overall power efficiency of the radio and allows for more compact radio designs through the reduction of the size of the heat sink and relaxed thermal design. The power amplifier was tested with a full 1T/1R RF front-end reference design incorporating Qorvo’s industry-leading transmit and receive products. The companies will showcase this solution at Booth 3030 at International Microwave Symposium in Denver on June 19 - 24.

According to Allied Market Research, the global massive MIMO market size was valued at $1.09 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $15.79 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 35.3% from 2020 to 2027.

“At Qorvo, we work to implement full RF end-to-end solutions that can be directly implemented by customers,” said Gangadhar Burra, chief architect of Qorvo’s Infrastructure and Defense business. “Demonstrating our high-efficiency amplifiers with a full radio front end provides a complete solution and 3GPP compliance. Qorvo is excited to be teamed with MaxLinear on their state of the art radio and linearization solutions.”

“At MaxLinear we engineer customer value into our products,” said Brendan Walsh, MaxLinear’s Vice President, Wireless Infrastructure. “Working with Qorvo to provide a solution for smaller and energy-efficient massive MIMO radios gives our customers an attractive solution to meet site and installation challenges and energy efficiency targets.”

More about MaxLIN Solution:

MaxLinear’s latest linearization system (MaxLIN), coupled with a companion optimization software MaxLIN Design Studio, delivers excellent efficiency and linearization performance with GaN power amplifiers. MaxLIN Technology includes crest factor reduction (CFR) and digital pre-distortion (DPD), providing adaptive linearization for highly nonlinear power amplifiers.

MaxLIN Design Studio CAD software provides an automated power amplifier characterization and DPD co-optimization. This reduces the traditionally tedious task of power amplifier linearization from several months to a few weeks by providing a fully automated closed-loop optimization system.

MaxLIN is integrated into MaxLinear’s single-chip solution, Sierra, for 5G open RAN radio units. 

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