HEDGE Transceiver Supports TD-SCDMA, HSUPA, S-Band, and GMR Specifications
Portable Design News, Monday February 11, 2008
Sequoia Communications has announced at Mobile World Congress that its SEQ7400 HEDGE transceiver has been verified to support HSUPA, TD-SCDMA, S-Band, and GMR satellite specifications via extensive testing, making it the first true “flexible radio.” Originally introduced in May 2007, the SEQ7400 is based on the company’s patented FullSpectra architecture, which includes the only transmitter in the industry to use polar modulation in all modes. This all-polar architecture enables this flexibility without the sub-optimal cost and power consumption that plagues traditional software-defined radio (SDR) approaches.
The SEQ7400, the industry’s most highly integrated single-chip HEDGE transceiver, is currently being integrated into several baseband reference platforms targeting 3G phones later this year. The key to its ability to easily support additional modes, like TD-SCDMA, lies in the all-polar transmitter which uses a single transmit path for all modes.
The single-path polar architecture for the analog portion of the radio gives it the most efficient size and power consumption possible. The company then added a very flexible, all-digital programming interface that is easily modified in software to accommodate additional modes and frequency bands. This combination of analog and digital approaches provides the most optimal tradeoff between flexibility and the key handset metrics.
“Our patented polar architecture is fundamental to enabling the ‘flexible radio’ concept,” said John Groe, CTO and founder of Sequoia Communications. “It uniquely provides the flexibility to process both narrow-band and wide-band modulation schemes using a single radio.”
Flexible Radio vs. SDR
Attempts have been made to develop a software-defined radio that can be programmed in software to handle various modes. To date, SDR has failed to meet the stringent cost and power consumption requirements for wireless handsets. In contrast, the flexible radio concept utilizes a single radio architecture capable of supporting all modulation types using customized digital circuitry. This provides a solution that can be easily upgraded to support next generation standards with minor changes in the digital design.
Test results prove that the SEQ7400 meets the most difficult of cellular specifications for WCDMA and HSDPA, and as a result is proven to be the best single-chip HEDGE solution on the market. Further testing has proven that the SEQ7400 can be extended to a variety of other applications without any modifications to the chip itself. It needs only to be re-programmed and then tested to the new specifications. The SEQ7400 is the first true “flexible radio.”
Sequoia Communications, San Diego, CA (858) 946-7400 [www.sequoiacommunications.com]
