Freescale Unveils New RF Control Circuit to Optimize Performance of Airfast Doherty Amplifiers

The new MMDS20254H advanced Doherty alignment module (ADAM) enables more accurate alignment of phase and amplitude on the carrier and peaking paths of high-power Doherty amplifiers, thereby improving overall base station performance. The sophisticated technology also helps enhance power efficiency while boosting performance across the entire cellular frequency band.

“The process of optimizing Doherty amplifiers can be challenging, time consuming and labor intensive,” said Ritu Favre, senior vice president and general manager of Freescale’s RF business. “The highly sophisticated capabilities of our newest ADAM product demonstrate our deep understanding of the design challenges and issues facing RF engineers today. The MMDS20254H solution delivers the advanced technology and comprehensive support required to help RF engineers optimize the performance of Freescale’s industry-leading Airfast RF power portfolio.”

Fueled by the widespread adoption of TD-LTE and W-CDMA, Doherty amplifiers have regained prominence as an industry standard, providing high power-added efficiency when amplifying the types of signals associated with these popular protocols. Freescale’s MMDS20254H ADAM device offers exceptional linearity/efficiency tradeoffs, while improving output power. The solution includes a coupler, digitally selectable phase shifters and step attenuators, while operating from a single voltage supply. The MMDS20254H is suitable for transmit protocols such as W-CDMA and LTE, using frequencies from 1800 to 2200 MHz, and is controlled using a SPI interface.