Microwave Journal
www.microwavejournal.com/articles/37060-situne-samples-state-of-the-art-5g-rf-transceiver-si-to-tier-1-customers-and-partners-worldwide
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SiTune Samples State-of-the-Art 5G RF Transceiver Si to Tier-1 Customers and Partners Worldwide

November 2, 2021

SiTune Corporation, a leading provider of RF and mixed-signal ICs, is sampling IceWings™ as the lowest power RF transceiver Si along with reference designs and complete software platform to Tier-1 customers and partners worldwide. IceWings™ feature sets and versatile architecture will be leveraged by multiple global customers in various products including 5G NR gNodeB, small cell, CPE and user equipment.

IceWings™ is an innovative RF transceiver with four integrated transmitters and four integrated receivers that supports a wide range of standards with signal frequencies below 7.2 GHz and enables mmWave applications by intermediate to baseband conversion. This unique product with wideband low noise amplifiers and one-of-a-kind multi-band capability offers the highest signal quality and the lowest power consumption in the industry. IceWings™ is enabling a diverse range of TDD/FDD applications including cellular infrastructure designs as well as private networks and access points. The new Si is based on GlobalFoundries®' (GF®) 22FDX™ platform, providing superior performance with digital and RF enhancements for 5G Sub-7 GHz and mmWave infrastructure.

With accelerated investment in the newly opened C-Band, or n77/ n78/n79 as the most popular 5G band, equipment manufacturers and network operators are looking for the best-in-class RF products supporting the wider available bandwidth in various frequencies. Contrary to traditional solutions with costly BOM that require multiple high-power chips, IceWings™ offers an integrated low power programmable transceiver for any band and various bandwidths.

"IceWings™ not only supports more than 300 MHz of bandwidth for multi-carrier applications in C-Band, it's also the lowest power solution in the market enabling operation in the sweet spot of mid-band in terms of bandwidth and signal range," says Dr. Marzieh Veyseh SiTune CTO/CPO. "All frequency bands below 6 GHz as well as 6 GHz to 7.2 GHz are supported with excellent wide bandwidth performance. We have been partnering with GF to fabricate IceWings™ based on their leading FDSOI solution, and we are currently sampling IceWings™ to a wide range of enterprise and telco customers including EdgeQ, targeting use cases from enhanced mobile broadband to critical IoT and ultra-reliable low-latency communications."

"GF has been helping customers overcome 5G complexity challenges and rollout pressures, while minimizing CAPEX and OPEX expenditures, through a combination of feature-rich solutions and specialized RF post-fab turnkey services that build on our decades of RF expertise," said Peter Rabbeni, vice president, wireless infrastructure and satcom business line at GF. "The combination of SiTune's leading technology and GF's innovative solutions, will unlock a new wave of immersive user experiences and make industry transformation a reality."

"To be true beneficiaries of 5G, we need to navigate the market through all the multiplicities and complexities of 5G, intuitively and seamlessly. IceWings™ uniquely addresses the pluralities of 5G in an elegant manner. By collapsing multiple spectrums, multiple bands, and multiple protocols into a compact footprint that is efficient, intelligent and low power, we can distill 5G into a simple construct, ideal for wireless infrastructure," said Hari Gangadharan, head of Silicon Engineering of EdgeQ.

"5G's transformative power will be realized by the broad deployment of the infrastructure in the mid-band. This requires best-in-class RF transceivers, where IceWings™ is a clear technology leader with the highest integration at the lowest power dissipation," said Hossein Moiin, operating partner at Cota Capital and former CTO of Nokia. 

"5G networks continue to evolve from NSA to SA and with ramping deployments of mid-band massive MIMO networks and mmWave networks," said Phil Solis, research director, Connectivity and Smartphone Semiconductors at IDC. "What was missing in the market until recently were transceivers and beamformer ICs with better performance and lower power consumption, and SiTune's transceivers are an important part of this evolving picture."