The Overview
In its new RadioVerse system-on-chip (SoC) series of devices, Analog Devices provides radio-unit (RU) developers with an agile and cost-effective platform that the company claims will result in the most energy-efficient 5G RUs in the industry. The new SoC series provides advanced RF signal processing with expanded digital functionality and RF capacity that greatly improves 5G RU performance.
Who Needs It and Why?
Demand for power-efficient RUs is expanding rapidly as global network operators race to deploy their 5G infrastructures. With the exponential growth of wireless demand, energy efficiency is a key metric for operators as they seek to reduce their carbon footprint while expanding network capacity. The new RadioVerse SoC series requires very low power compared to alternatives and implements advanced algorithms that deliver optimal RU system efficiency.
Under the Hood
The ADRV9040, the first in the new RadioVerse SoC series, offers eight transmit and receive channels of 400-MHz bandwidth and integrates advanced DSP functions, including carrier digital up-converters (CDUC), carrier digital down-converters (CDDC), crest-factor reduction (CFR) and digital pre-distortion (DPD). This expanded signal processing can eliminate the need for a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), thereby reducing thermal footprint as well as total system size, weight, power, and cost. The SoC’s DPD algorithms were developed using advanced machine-learning techniques and are optimized in close collaboration with major power-amplifier (PA) vendors to ease the design burden and deliver best-in-class wide bandwidth performance. The algorithms are fully tested and validated across 4G and 5G use cases, including various PA technology types such as gallium nitride (GaN). In addition, the ZiF radio architecture simplifies RF filtering and signal-chain components, reducing RU cost and development time for band- and power-variants designs.
