Xilinx is collaborating with Texas Instruments (TI) to develop scalable and adaptable digital front-end (DFE) solutions to increase energy efficiency of lower antenna count radios.
The collaboration will combine Xilinx's Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC family and adaptable RF IP with the AFE7769 quad-channel RF transceiver from TI.
Xilinx's Adaptable Digital RF IP includes specialist functionality of Crest Factor Reduction (CFR) and Digital Pre-distortion (DPD). It can support a wide range of radio bandwidths and carrier configurations. Also, by being tightly integrated with the rest of the PHY processing implemented in the Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC device, it can handle the increasingly complex signal dynamics of multi-RAT and 5G waveforms which are challenging for standalone DPD implementations. The PA technology is also evolving quickly to address these new radio requirements with broader adoption of GaN and new architectures.
“Critical to the success of the radio platform is the efficiency and performance of the RF power amplifier (PA). Even for low-power small cell applications, the PA consumes over 50% of the power of a typical next-generation radio and is therefore key to driving the OPEX and CAPEX,” said Liam Madden, executive vice president and general manager, Wired and Wireless Group at Xilinx. “A scalable and adaptable DFE solution that can address current and future PA efficiency needs is key for the advancement of 5G platforms.”
“PA linearity for spectral efficiency and RF power delivery is key to achieving the performance benefits of 5G New Radio systems. Wide-bandwidth transceivers like the AFE7769 help to address higher-order PA nonlinearities and enable more efficient power delivery,” said Karthik Vasanth, vice president and business unit manager, data converters, at TI. “With this implementation, designers can address the market needs for higher instantaneous bandwidth and antenna counts to support MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) applications while also offering scalability to meet system cost targets.”
