Analog Devices’ RadioVerse® SoC Drives 5G Radio Efficiency and Performance

December 14, 2021

News

The new SoC series provides advanced RF signal processing with expanded digital functionality and RF capacity that greatly improves 5G RU performance and energy efficiency. The SoCs are the newest addition to ADI’s RadioVerse ecosystem and combine its Zero IF (ZiF) architecture with significant advances in functional integration and linearization.

Analog Devices, Inc. announced a breakthrough RadioVerse® System-on-Chip (SoC) series providing radio unit (RU) developers with an agile and cost-effective platform to create the most energy efficient 5G RUs in the industry.

With the exponential growth of wireless demand, energy efficiency is a key metric for operators as they seek to reduce their carbon footprint while expanding network capacity. The new RadioVerse SoC series requires very low power and implements advanced algorithms that deliver optimal RU system efficiency.

“RadioVerse SoCs are designed to optimize the full radio solution rather than just a single component or interface,” said Joe Barry, Vice President of Wireless Communications at Analog Devices. “Each successive generation has provided expanded capabilities, bandwidth and performance, while improving overall RU efficiency.”

The ADRV9040 is the first in the RadioVerse SoC series. It offers eight transmit and receive channels of 400MHz bandwidth and integrates advanced digital signal processing functions, including carrier digital up-converters, carrier digital down-converters, crest factor reduction, and digital pre-distortion (DPD). This expanded signal processing can eliminate the need for a field-programmable gate array, thereby reducing thermal footprint and total system size, weight, power, and cost.

The SoC’s DPD algorithms were developed using machine learning techniques and are optimized in close collaboration with power amplifier (PA) vendors to ease the design burden and deliver wide bandwidth performance. The algorithms are fully tested and validated across 4G and 5G use cases, including various PA technology types such as gallium nitride. In addition, the ZiF radio architecture simplifies RF filtering and signal chain components, reducing RU cost and development time for band and power variants designs.

For more information, visit Analog Devices.