TriQuint Semiconductor announced the release of its latest quad-band transmit module, the TQM6M5001, as a key member of its wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) total RF front-end strategy. The module, in the same size footprint of its predecessor, provides full GSM/EDGE (enhanced data rates for GSM evolution) capability. Like its predecessor, the module is the smallest of its kind, offering a highly integrated, highly efficient design for reducing battery consumption, speeding time-to-market and enabling smaller handset form factors that consumers favor.
The new TQM6M5001 enables the higher EDGE bandwidth services sought after by wireless phone users. Its high-level integration allows phone designers to move from the GPRS (general packet radio system) of GSM service to full EDGE, which affords data rates up to three times faster than GPRS. The new module, at 6x6x1.1mm3, is the smallest of its kind today. TriQuint’s newest EDGE transmit (Tx) module complements the company’s total RF 3G system solution announced at the GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
TriQuint’s new product is an all-in-one RF transmit module with full GMSK (Gaussian minimum shift keying) and EDGE linear functionality, combining a quad-band EDGE power amplifier (PA), a linear transmit (Tx)/receive (Rx) switch, plus PA and switch control along with ESD (electro static discharge) protection, all in a form factor no larger than TriQuint’s present GSM/GPRS transmit module family. The module’s size and integration make it ideal for the latest generation of slim-line and compact GSM/EDGE handsets or wireless cards.
The TQM6M5001 has been optimized for high GSM/EDGE efficiency and EDGE power class E2 operation while maintaining exceptional margin in system critical parameters like adjacent channel power rejection (ACPR) and error vector magnitude (EVM) in all four bands. The transmit module supports full GPRS Class 12 operation. The built-in power and switch control IC has no need for any external reference voltage, which greatly simplifies phone design efforts and reduces overall system costs by speeding manufacturing and reducing the number of external matching components. The transmit module also offers high flexibility in its bias interface and features quiescent current states from zero bit to continuous bias, which enables phone designers to maximize current savings that can result in extended mobile device battery life.
The TQM6M5001 is fully optimized to the market’s most popular transceivers, meaning the module’s impedance is closely tailored to the transceiver’s transmit and receive signals. This optimization assures system level compliance and is a hallmark advantage provided by TriQuint’s modules and components for the RF front end. Because the new TQM6M5001’s size and height are compatible with the transmit modules already used in many GSM phone applications, designers can easily adapt current phone board layouts to next-generation EDGE designs. The TQM6M5001 module is fabricated using TriQuint’s high-reliability InGaP (indium gallium phosphide) HBT (heterojunction bipolar transistor) and pHEMT (enhancement mode pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor) process technologies.
The release of this new module is in conjunction with TriQuint’s exhibition at the GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.