65fdce2ff016e9001ee87759 0324mwrf Arctic Semi Silver Wings Promo

Low-Power 4x4 RF Transceiver Handles Up/Down Conversions

March 22, 2024

The all-in-one transceiver performs multi-stage upconversion and downconversion from RF to digital and vice versa from 600 MHz to 7.2 GHz.

David Maliniak

Related To: Microwaves & RF

The Overview: An Innovative RF Transceiver

SilverWings, a new 4x4 RF transceiver from Arctic Semiconductor, is touted as the first such device to offer multi-stage upconversion and downconversion from digital to RF and RF to digital. The chip integrates high-performance analog capabilities with high-bandwidth digital functions.

Who Needs It & Why: All-in-One RF Transceiver Design

Designers of all manners of wireless systems want to put as much integration in play as possible, reducing costs and printed-circuit-board footprints. SilverWings offers an avenue toward greater integration in a wide range of applications including:

Wireless radios
Satellite communication
Repeaters
Fixed-wireless access devices
User equipment
Medical devices
Instrumentation

Moreover, designers stand to gain from the device’s low-power architecture and digital-IF and high-IF conversion methodologies, which enable programmable and adaptable system designs.

Under the Hood: Seamless RF Transceiver Integration

Within the SilverWings RF transceiver is a complete suite for functionality that’s essential to implementing upconversion and downconversion. The receiver sports an RF gain stage for extremely fast automatic gain control (AGC). The device also includes digital predistortion (DPD) on the transmitter, further increasing integration while also helping subdue external power-amplifier nonlinearity.

The device provides a quartet of transmit and receive paths with two observation paths. It offers a control interface that runs at up to 400 Mb/s for pinpoint control and brings up to 72 dB of analog-controllable RF gain.

For the power-conscious designer, SilverWings brings a 60% power reduction compared to competitive solutions, it’s claimed. It does so even as it integrates RF gain with gain control in both the transmit and receive signal paths. The linearization of the wideband power amplifier provided by the device’s integrated DPD brings manageable radio-unit power consumption in massive-MIMO applications.

Thanks to its digital-IF conversion methodology, SilverWings eliminates the intricate software calibration steps that compensate for IQ imbalance and local-oscillator leakage. This significantly reduces costs in the development and production stages, according to Arctic. Moreover, the device’s multi-stage analog and digital upconversion and downconversion functions provide for a programmable and flexible system design that’s tailored around the operating frequency, bandwidth, and other required specifications.

The SilverWings’ MP is available to order now.

Links:

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.