For its first production device, the SUMMIT 2629, the New Jersey-based start-up MixComm offers a 28-GHz front-end RFIC with technology based upon breakthroughs developed at Columbia University’s CoSMIC lab led by Dr. Harish Krishnaswamy. The SUMMIT 2629 integrates novel power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, Tx/Rx switching, beamformers, calibration, gain control, beam table memory, temperature and power telemetry, and high-speed SPI control for a front-end module with optimal partitioning for 5G infrastructure. The device is fabricated on GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) 45RFSOI 45-nm process technology. The SUMMIT 2629 operates from 26.5 to 29.5 GHz and is the first of a family of MixComm mmWave devices.
The SUMMIT 2629 RFIC has been designed to address the critical challenges that currently constrain 5G mmWave success, by extending range to decrease carrier cost and improve customer satisfaction, reducing thermal and electrical power consumption budgets, and optimizing antenna arrays to reduce module cost. The device is claimed to offer efficiency of more than 2X that of existing devices. It incorporates a four-element, dual-polarized TX/RX with independent polarization beam directions and high-power SOI CMOS power amplifiers with low noise and low-loss Tx/Rx switching.
These benefits make the MixComm solution a suitable candidate for 5G infrastructure ranging from gNodeB base stations and repeaters to customer premise equipment. The flexible architecture and ultra-low power operation will also enable 5G hotspots and other user equipment demanding long battery life and sleek form factors.
Having worked with RFSOI process technologies for more than a decade, the MixComm team chose to work closely with GF and its 45RFSOI process, a 45-nm, partially-depleted SOI technology co-developed with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to accelerate mmWave innovation and enable commercially-viable applications.
The SUMMIT 2629 will be available for sampling in Q2, 2020.
MixComm, mixcomm-inc.com