Infineon Technologies presented a full system design for the wireless connection of base stations to the corresponding base station controller of a mobile communications network (wireless backhaul) at European Microwave Week in Rome, Italy. Based on Infineon’s E-/V-band transceiver family and Escape Communications’ FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) it allows for continuous upgrades in the field, giving network operators maximum flexibility and competitiveness.

The solution was created in a joint effort of four companies: The RF front end has been developed by Infineon’s system design house partner GreenWaves featuring Infineon’s BGT70 and BGT80 E-band transceivers. Escape Communications has integrated this RF front end – which features an additional power amplifier for transmission ranges of several kilometers – successfully with their Altera FPGA-based 250 MHz modem module.

Philipp von Schierstaedt, vice president and general manager of the Business Line Radio Frequency and Sensors at Infineon Technologies, said “Millimeter wave backhaul is the key technology to quickly develop a cost efficient communication infrastructure for Gigabit data rates. Our strategic path from product thinking to system understanding leads to success. Together with GreenWaves, Escape and Altera we have leveraged system expertise to offer a compact and flexible solution for this highly attractive market.”

Michael Stewart, CEO and founder of Escape Communications added, “We are providing mobile equipment makers with a baseband solution offering a complete field-proven software stack, market-leading modem features, performance and carrying capacities at the lowest total cost of ownership. Our solution has ASSP-like power consumption, but unlike ASSPs, our solution is field-upgradable so our customers can continue to innovate and compete on features, not just price.”

The BGTx0 transceivers from Infineon replace more than ten discrete devices as they integrate all of the RF building blocks in a compact, plastic eWLB package: I/Q modulator, Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO), Power Amplifier (PA), Low Noise Amplifier (LNA), Programmable Gain Amplifier (PGA), SPI control interface and more.

Infineon demonstrated the integrated solution at European Microwave Week in Rome (October 7 – 9, 2014), Booth 152.