TI’s single-chip direct down-conversion

Bangalore: Expanding its broad portfolio of analog and digital signal processing products for wireless infrastructure base station manufacturers, Texas Instruments (TI) introduced a new monolithic, high-linearity quadrature demodulator for direct down conversion applications. The new device reduces the component count of the receive signal chain in 3G base stations by at least 75 percent, compared to superheterodyne architectures. The TRF3710 demodulator improves the RF receive signal chain by integrating all the devices required to go directly from RF to baseband onto one chip.

“With the TRF3710 analog chip, Texas Instruments addresses the specific needs of wireless infrastructure base station manufacturers in India, with substantially lower system cost and provides a complete and integrated signal chain solution.” says Apoorva Awasthy, manager, business development, high performance analog (HPA), Texas Instruments India.

The device also includes a programmable gain amplifier with 24-dB of gain range in 1-dB increments, and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) driver that allows for direct connection to the ADC. When compared to two-stage superheterodyne architectures, the TRF3710 reduces overall complexity in the system by eliminating many of the receive signal chain components, including filters, mixers, a phase-locked loop (PLL) or voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), RF and baseband amplifiers.

The TRF3710 directly converts the RF signal to complex baseband, which ultimately reduces system cost by eliminating the need for premium, high-IF and high sample-rate ADCs. Additionally, the device provides linearity receiver and RF performance with IIP2 of 60 dB, IIP3 of 21 dB, and a noise figure of 13.5 dB.

Texas Instruments