0620 Mw Mix Comm 5 G Front End Ic Figure 5ee9320aeb9bd

MixComm Launches with 28-GHz Beamforming Front-End IC

June 16, 2020

For its maiden production device, a startup relies on GF’s 45-nm RFSOI process technology.

Related To: MixComm

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

About the Author

David Maliniak | Executive Editor, Microwaves & RF

I am Executive Editor of Microwaves & RF, an all-digital publication that broadly covers all aspects of wireless communications. More particularly, we're keeping a close eye on technologies in the consumer-oriented 5G, 6G, IoT, M2M, and V2X markets, in which much of the wireless market's growth will occur in this decade and beyond. I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, developers, and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our contributor's packet, in which you'll find an article template and lots more useful information on how to properly prepare content for us, and send to me along with a signed release form.

About me:

In his long career in the B2B electronics-industry media, David Maliniak has held editorial roles as both generalist and specialist. As Components Editor and, later, as Editor in Chief of EE Product News, David gained breadth of experience in covering the industry at large. In serving as EDA/Test and Measurement Technology Editor at Electronic Design, he developed deep insight into those complex areas of technology. Most recently, David worked in technical marketing communications at Teledyne LeCroy, leaving to rejoin the EOEM B2B publishing world in January 2020. David earned a B.A. in journalism at New York University.