OREANDA-NEWS. October 24, 2011. Fujitsu Semiconductor Asia Pte Ltd. recently announced release of the industry’s first commercial multi-mode transceiver chip-MB86L12A. The chip, as a follow-up to the MB86L10A, can eliminate external LNAs and inter-stage SAW filters from the TX and RX paths of both 3G and LTE lineups. The transceiver features a high-level programming model for controlling the radio using an open standard digital interface (3G and 4G DigRF/MIPI), which is compatible with a wide range of industry baseband. It is ideal for multi-mode, multi-band LTE, UMTS and EDGE mobile handsets. The MB86L12A transceiver chip will be available in sample quantities from December.

Nowadays, the global 4G LTE communication market is developing rapidly and the multi-band and multi-mode is the developing trend of cell-phones. Cell-phone manufactures should not only provide multiple combinations of mode and frequency, but also handle the shorted product life cycle and minimized package size. Answering to the request, the new MB86L12A RF transceiver chip is developed for applications in all types of cell-phones, data cards or data communication module.

Simultaneous support of both 3G and 4G interfaces allows the MB86L12A to be paired with one or two baseband processor ICs as needed. Building on the revolutionary short-cycle RF programming method used in Fujitsu’s MB86L01A, the MB86L12A speeds RF subsystem implementations with simplified layer-one programming and embedded intelligence. With this revolutionary approach, an engineer enters a single command stating the desired channel and power level.

Eight outputs directly drive the power amplifier and eliminate the need for TX inter-stage SAW filters. The new RF front-end eliminates the need for LNAs and RX inter-stage SAW filters. Nine primary inputs Rx and five secondary inputs (Diversity Rx) support LTE, WCDMA and GSM/EDGE. The receiver also incorporates anti-aliasing filters, digital channel filters, digital gain control and high-dynamic-range ADCs. The new, compact transceiver module enables cell-phone manufacturers to reduce component count, board space and bill of materials.

The MB86L12A supports GSM (GSM850, EGSM900, DCS1800 and PCS1900), WCDMA (bands I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VIII, IX, X and XI) and LTE (FDD bands 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 and 17, and TDD bands 38 and 40).

Fujitsu Semiconductor obtained technology licensing and intellectual property of semiconductor mobile phone RF transceiver products from Freescale in 2009, and purchased the RF department of Freescale in Arizona of the United States. There are currently more than 160 design engineers engaged in RF transceiver design, architecture, confirmation, verification and reference design. The department has nearly 20 year of experience in RF research and development, and will dominate customer technical support of the present L12A products.