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What is Energy Harvesting and How Does it Work?
April 8, 2010 1:19 pm | Articles | CommentsBy Michele Kinman, Energy Harvesting Forum click to enlarge Energy harvesting is the process of capturing and accumulating byproduct energy as the energy becomes available, storing the energy for a period of time and conditioning it into a form that can be used later – such as operating a microprocessor with in its limits.
Playing Nicely Together in Wireless Design
April 8, 2010 1:18 pm | Articles | CommentsBy Mike Woodward, Communications Industry Marketing Manager, The MathWorks click to enlarge Figure 1. Silo development methodology. The use of silo-based methods in wireless systems design often introduces problems in the development process.
Printed Displays offer New World of Design Opportunities
April 8, 2010 1:18 pm | Articles | CommentsBy Dennis Brestovansky, president and CEO of Aveso Displays A new world of printed electronic display technology is evolving, offering unlimited opportunities for mass consumer and industrial applications. New flexible, printed displays are increasingly being integrated into a variety of everyday products including credit cards, product packaging, home-health diagnostics and even in apparel to combat theft and counterfeit.
Benchmarking RF Front Ends Powered by DC-DC Converters Across a Discharging Battery
March 29, 2010 10:35 am | Articles | CommentsBy Keith Adkins and Jackie Johnson, RF Micro Devices In the last decade mobile device users have seen unprecedented changes in technology. These changes have brought more functionality and lower cost to the overall handset market. Users are demanding more and more functionality in mobile devices, which comes at the cost of talk time.
Single Carrier FDMA in LTE
February 11, 2010 10:21 am | Articles | CommentsBy Ram Asokan, Ixia SC-FDMA is a new technology used for uplink in LTE. This article explores this technology, its use in LTE and its extension from OFDM.
Challenges in Designing a New Modulation Scheme for LTE
February 8, 2010 7:30 am | Articles | CommentsDeveloping the LTE uplink, especially the receiver for the base station, requires complex design approaches and a significant capability in test systems. By Tim Fowler, Cambridge Consultants Ltd. click to enlarge Figure 1. Functional test equipment.
More than Residential: Femtocell Deployment Beyond the Home
February 8, 2010 7:30 am | Articles | CommentsThere is great potential for ‘greater femtocells' to improve mobile coverage and capacity outside the home environment. By Rupert Baines, picoChip, Inc. Femtocells are now a commercial reality. Launches by AT&T and Vodafone, amongst others, have brought femtocells into the consumer sphere.
Wireless Basestation Design Challenges Using High-Speed, 16-bit ADCs
February 8, 2010 7:30 am | Articles | CommentsBy Josh Carnes, National Semiconductor Corporation click to enlarge Figure 1. Block diagram of an IF sampling subsystem within a communications receiver. Cutting-edge 16-bit, high-speed analog-to-digital converters (ADC) can offer the very high dynamic range and low distortion levels required to meet today's most demanding wireless communications standards.
Next Generation Wireless IP Networking Applications
February 8, 2010 7:30 am | Articles | CommentsIPSec's growing importance in ensuring security and reliability in new networks By Asaf Shen, Discretix Inc. Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) provides security at the network layer of the protocol stack. By using IPSec, protection is offered to all IP packets regardless of the protocols and applications running in the upper layers of the protocol stack.
LTE Femtocell Roadmap from Concept to Reality
February 8, 2010 7:30 am | Articles | CommentsThe LTE femtocell stands to serve as a key weapon in the mobile operator arsenal. By Todd Mersch, Continuous Computing click to enlarge Figure 1. Putting the puzzle together, integrated LTE femtocell silicon. The market is buzzing about the critical role of "small cells" in Long Term Evolution (LTE) deployments – femtocells, picocells and microcells.
Network Operator Acceptance Testing of LTE Devices
February 8, 2010 7:29 am | Articles | CommentsThe (new/old) challenges in accelerating LTE device time-to-market. By Konstantinos Stavropoulos, Anite click to enlarge Figure 1. A representative set of lab acceptance tests that 2G/3G operators have considered. The use of wireless devices, whether handsets or data cards, has increased substantially during the last few years.
Building an FPGA-based SoC Framework for LTE Baseband Designs
February 8, 2010 7:28 am | Articles | CommentsBy Akshaya Trivedi, Altera Corporation Figure 1. SoC framework and infrastructure. Radio Access Networks (RANs) are undergoing an architecture change to an all-IP flat network to reduce network deployment costs as well as to offer rich mobile applications and services at a lower end-to-end latency.
Transmitter RFIC Integration for Next Generation Wireless Infrastructure Radios
February 8, 2010 7:28 am | Articles | CommentsLeveraging highly integrated RFIC designs and high dynamic range converters helps meet the challenges of next-generation base stations. By Phillip Halford and Ed Balboni, RF Group, Analog Devices, Inc. click to enlarge Figure 1.
LTE: The Insatiable Need for Bandwidth Drives Architectural Change
February 2, 2010 10:14 am | Articles | CommentsBy Manuel Uhm and Mark Quartermain, Xilinx The baseband processing function represents a key area of product differentiation for Telecommunications Equipment Manufacturers (TEMs). However, the advent of 3.9/4G systems poses a difficult challenge to TEMs, as they struggle to evolve traditional DSP-centric channel cards to meet a new set of technical and commercial challenges.
Wireless Base Stations Benefit from Signal Compression
February 2, 2010 6:17 am | Articles | CommentsFor deployments by a single operator, wireless repeater systems offer more cost effective fiber transport costs. By Allan Evans, VP of Marketing, Samplify Systems ABI Research predicts that revenues for distributed antenna systems and in-building wireless systems will exceed $15B by 2013.
Designing a Wireless Heart Rate Monitor with Remote Data Logging
January 7, 2010 10:58 am | Articles | CommentsThe current generation of monitors are portable heart rate sensors that have found their way into general purposes for activities such as exercise and sports. While these devices are useful for individual purposes, they do not facilitate use by a coach or manager. By Archana Yarlagadda, Cypress Semiconductor click to enlarge Figure 1.
Wireless Sensor Networks Expand the Reach of Wireless Technology
December 18, 2009 10:55 am | Articles | CommentsWant to learn more about how design engineers are addressing the challenges of Wireless Sensor Networks? Read on! By Nicholas Butler, Wireless Sensor Networks, National Instruments click to enlarge Figure 1. Technology adoption lifecycle from Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey A.
MIMO-Analysis for WiMAX, WLAN and LTE
December 14, 2009 11:48 am | Articles | CommentsMaking measurements involving MIMO applications requires adaptation of the algorithms used in the analysis software. By Johan Nilsson and Dr. Wolfgang Wendler, Rohde & Schwarz click to enlarge Figure 1. MIMO in WiMAX system. Due to ongoing growth in demand for channel capacity, more and more radio standards such as WiMAX, 3GPP HSPA, 3GPP LTE and WLAN are adopting MIMO technology.
Integration and Power Management Open the Door for RKE Applications
December 14, 2009 11:48 am | Articles | CommentsASSPs are meeting the challenges through the integration of mixed-signal technology and innovative power management schemes. Herve Branquart, Robert Waterman, ON Semiconductor click to enlarge Figure 1: Two way RKE block diagram Wireless transceiver technology is truly established in the automotive industry with Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) now a standard feature of even basic specification vehicles.
Model-Based Design for Hybrid Electric Vehicle Systems
December 14, 2009 11:48 am | Articles | CommentsHybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) development requires collaboration and optimization across multiple engineering domains. By Saurabh Mahapatra, The MathWorks Figure 1: This simplified diagram of an HEV vehicle illustrates one possible arrangement of system elements.
The Role of Wideband Transceiver Technology in Enabling LTE
December 14, 2009 11:47 am | Articles | CommentsAn integrated single-chip RF transceiver provides the flexibility to address all aspects of the LTE standard. By Ebrahim Bushehri, Lime Microsystems click to enlarge Table 1: Comparison of data rate and channel bandwidth for wireless standards.
Introduction to LTE Base Station RF Conformance Testing
December 14, 2009 11:47 am | Articles | CommentsBy Moray Rumney and Hiroshi Yanagawa, Agilent Technologies, Inc. Operator acceptance testing is yet another step in the process and includes more user-centric tests. click to enlarge Table 1. Base station RF transmitter characteristics tests.
The Hidden Challenge of MIMO Test
October 15, 2009 11:08 am | Articles | CommentsToday, engineers can combine modern RF signal analyzers with a basic understanding of digital downconversion to produce a tightly synchronized MIMO measurement solution. By David A. Hall, National Instruments click to enlarge Figure 1.
Build Agility through Wireless Networks Designed Right
October 15, 2009 9:33 am | Articles | CommentsDesigning a wireless data network without fully accounting for the mix of applications, the types of client devices and number of users risks reduced performance. By Dr. Roger Skidmore, Motorola click to enlarge Figure 1.
Protecting Chinese 3G Base Stations
October 15, 2009 9:02 am | Articles | CommentsJudicious use of the appropriate protective circuits and devices in cellular base stations can greatly improve reliability and ensure required compliance with YD5098-2005. By Teddy To, China, Littelfuse Inc. click to enlarge Figure 1.
