Chip combines upconverter, crest factor reduction, pre-distortion

Texas Instruments has introduced the GC5322, a single-chip wireless transmit processor that combines digital upconverter (DUC), crest factor reduction (CFR), and digital pre-distortion (DPD) linearization functions. The GC5322 device increases the efficiency of multi-carrier power amplifiers (PAs) in the RF transmit signal chain and eliminates the need for more costly high-performance RF power amplifier components. The GC5322 enables Class AB PAs to achieve efficiencies exceeding 25% and Doherty PAs to achieve efficiencies above 40%.

The GC5322 features advanced DPD linearization technology that significantly reduces the requirements for base station power amplifiers. The GC5322 processes composite input bandwidths of up to 40MHz and significantly reduces the Peak-to-Average ratio (PAR) of the input signals while also improving adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR). The flexible DSP-based pre-distortion linearization algorithm supports multiple power amplifier architectures and emerging standards, such as CDMA2000, W-CDMA, TD-SCDMA, OFDMA (WiMAX, LTE), HSPA, and HSPA+.

The GC5322, coupled with TI's TMS320C6727 low-cost, floating-point DSP, offers basestation OEMs real-time processing power and the flexibility to modify the DPD algorithm to adapt to emerging wireless standards. The GC5322 is supported by a complete evaluation system, including high speed data converters, power solutions, clock synthesis, and high performance RF.

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Figure 1. The GC5322 and TMS320C6727 are used in TI's reference design.

The GC5322 will be released for production in 1Q and priced at $125 per 1K units. TI will feature the GC5322 as well as other new wireless infrastructure products at the Mobile World Congress Conference in Barcelona. For more information, go to: www.ti.com/beyond3g.