Nujira launches power-saving alliance at MWC

LONDON — Mobile phone power amplifier specialist Nujira Ltd. (Cambridge, England) has announced the formation of an OpenET Alliance to develop and publish open specifications for envelope-tracking interfaces for 3G and 4G platforms.

The OpenET Alliance will cover both terminal and infrastructure applications, and membership is open to any company or organization, Nujira said. Envelope-tracking technology allows the efficiency of radio frequency power amplifiers to be improved.

The first release of the OpenET Terminal Interface specification will be published at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Feb. 15 when the www.open-et.com website will also go live. Simon Whittle, the manager of Nujira's design center in Bath, has been named as interim chairman of the Alliance.

The OpenET specification is expected to ease interoperability between different vendors.

"Envelope Tracking is widely recognized as a key enabling technology for high efficiency 3G and 4G power amplifiers, reducing operating expense and carbon emissions for green basestation applications, and reducing cost, size and power in USB dongles and LTE handsets," said Whittle. "By launching the OpenET Alliance, we are enabling OEMs, platform partners and component vendors to adopt open, industry-standard interfaces to support envelope-tracking PAs, and to help define future generations of the interface standards."

The OpenET terminal interface specification enables envelope tracking to be added to existing or future baseband and RF chip sets for handsets, USB dongles and other mobile terminals. Nujira's Coolteq.L power modulator can reduce the current consumption of the PA by 50 percent or more.

Not only does the use of envelope tracking in basestations save power but the use of the technology in terminals should allow power savings there and in the transmitter.

"The OpenET specifications are wideband, futureproof, and entirely independent of transmission standard and frequency. They are suitable for use with all 2G, 3G and 4G mobile, digital TV and mobile TV broadcast applications, modulation schemes, standards and wavebands including multicarrier GSM, W-CDMA, LTE, WiMax, EDGE, HSUPA and HSDPA," said Whittle.

Related links and articles:

www.open-et.com

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