Envelope tracking takes off in LTE phones

RF envelope tracking to reduce the power waste in the RF power amplifiers of LTE phones has taken off, claims envelope tracking firm Nujira.

It is in 15 LTE phones, said Nujira, including:

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3


• Samsung Galaxy Round


• Samsung Galaxy S5


• Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini


• Samsung Galaxy S5 LTE-A


• Apple iPhone 6


• Apple iPhone 6 Plus


• Google Nexus 5


• HTC One M8


• Amazon Fire


• ZTE Nubla-Z5S


• ZTE Grand Memo


• Sony Experia Z2 tablet

Nujira did not reveal which envelope tracking technology firm supplied technology in which phone.

This was revealed alongside a report which goes on to predict the total market for envelope tracking will exceed four billion units a year by 2018, representing a $3bn market opportunity over the next five years “as envelope tracking becomes ubiquitous across the 4G smartphone market,” said Nujira.

The firm expects the 15 existing phones will account the shipping of around 125 million envelope tracking chips in 2014.

It also expects the technology to spread into WiFi, driven largely by the fast 802.11ac standard.

“Today’s Wi-Fi RF power amplifiers achieve less than 10% energy efficiency, and the market is ripe for high bandwidth envelope tracking solutions which can cut current consumption by 75%,” said Nujira.

The complete report ‘The market opportunity for envelope tracking’ can be downloaded.

With envelope tracling, the voltage of the power supply is modulated to follow the envelope of the RF signal passing through the power amplifier (PA) with just enough headroom to keep the PA running smoothly.

This reduces power dissipation in the power amplifier output transistors.

If the envelope tracking power supply is switch-mode, considerable energy can be saved when transmitting peaky RF signals – which are present in LTE, LTE-A and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

steve bush

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via Yuichun