Revolutionizing Wireless Connectivity with Arctic Semiconductor’s SilverWings
Arctic Semiconductor is a leading provider of energy-efficient, versatile RF and mixed-signal chipset solutions for wireless networks. These chipsets enable wireless equipment manufacturers to create cost-effective advanced radios for applications such as small cells, fixed wireless access, private networks, massive MIMO, and macro cells. During an interaction with Vidushi, Marzieh Veyseh, CPO/CTO and Co-Founder, Arctic Semiconductor discussed SilverWings’ groundbreaking advancements in RF transceiver technology, addressing industry challenges and heralding a new era of low-power, versatile wireless solutions.
1. Can you elaborate on the significance of SilverWings as the first 4×4 low-power transceiver in the industry, and how it addresses existing challenges in RF system designs?
SilverWings stands out as a unique product across various dimensions. It distinguishes itself through its architecture and functionality, particularly through its incorporation of RF gain within the receive path. This feature sets it apart from existing RF transceiver offerings in the market. By integrating RF gain stages, SilverWings reduces the need for external components and gain stages on the board, thus creating a more cost-effective system.
Moreover, this integrated gain facilitates RF fast AGC, a crucial capability for managing blockers and interference in modern wireless communication systems. Unlike alternative products, achieving this functionality is significantly more challenging, as adjusting the transceiver input to prevent saturation becomes necessary. Also, SilverWings addresses numerous challenges associated with IQ imbalance correction and LO leakage reduction inherent in analog zero IF conversion methods. By employing a digital-IF receiver and high-IF transmitter, it avoids analog baseband IQ signals by utilizing an IF frequency for analog conversion. Consequently, many complex and time-consuming calibration stages can be eliminated, leading to seamless system integration with modems.
Meanwhile, power consumption is a critical issue in the development of hardware for both infrastructure networks and user devices. Lower power consumption not only simplifies heat management but also enables the creation of devices with optimal form factors and battery usage. SilverWings boasts over a 70% reduction in power consumption, considering the chip itself and the internal integration of RF gain.
2. How does SilverWings’ multi-stage up and down conversion from digital to RF and RF to digital contribute to its versatility and adaptability in various applications?
The multi-stage up-conversion and down-conversion process offers flexibility in selecting the intermediate frequency (IF) for the receive path, depending on the RF operating frequency and occupied bandwidth. For instance, when dealing with lower bandwidths and adhering to 5G specifications, analog down-conversion can be initially employed. This brings the signal to a significantly lower IF frequency before utilizing data conversion for both signal digitization and further down-conversion to digital IQ. This adaptable approach to conversion methods enables SilverWings to accommodate bandwidths ranging from 400MHz for mmWave applications (supporting IF to baseband conversion) to much lower bandwidths of around 10MHz for LTE and 100MHz for 5G use cases, aligning with 3GPP specifications.
3. Could you explain the unique Digital-IF and High-IF conversion methodologies employed in SilverWings, and how they enhance performance while minimizing costs?
The Digital-IF and High-IF methodologies revolve around leveraging an intermediate frequency for both up-conversion and down-conversion of the signal between the analog and digital conversion stages. For instance, in the receive path of the Digital-IF methodology, the signal undergoes initial down-conversion using an analog mixer to a frequency below 500MHz. Subsequently, the integrated high-speed ADC handles the down-conversion of the real signal to baseband IQ. This approach differs from other alternative products, where analog down-conversion is employed to bring the signal to IQ baseband before utilizing lower-speed data converters to digitize the baseband IQ signal. The distinctive aspect of SilverWings lies in consolidating all analog mixing and digital high-speed conversion within a single product, enabling this type of conversion. Similarly, the transmit path incorporates a patented methodology involving initial up-conversion of the signal to an intermediate frequency below 1GHz. Then, analog mixing is utilized to further upconvert the signal to the desired RF frequency.
4. In what ways does Arctic Semiconductor‘s renowned low-power architecture play a role in the design and functionality of SilverWings?
The low-power design enables Arctic product to be different in a market where high number of arrays for radio design is a must and power consumption causes a significant challenge for hardware designers to control heat and optimize the design of the system. The issue of heat dissipation and thermal management in many cases lead to lack of feasibility in system design and deployment of infrastructure in both terrestrial or no territorial networks. Utilizing SilverWings enables customers and application engineers to develop system solutions that lead to high speed and high throughput connectivity.
5. Can you provide examples of real-world applications where SilverWings excels, such as wireless radios, satellite communication, and medical devices?
SilverWings stands as the prime choice for real-world implementation across various wireless systems that rely on a digital interface between the transceiver and the modem/processor, needing to support occupied bandwidths below 100MHz/200MHz or 400MHz, along with potential gain control requirements within the receiver path. Notably, SilverWings can accommodate any 5G/LTE bands, WiFi bands, or mmWave bands (via IF mixer). Its versatility extends to applications such as 5G small cells, private networks, mMIMO base stations, Macro base stations, and Telecom repeaters, as well as user devices. Essentially, SilverWings finds use cases wherever data transmission or reception, or data acquisition is essential.
6. How does SilverWings compare to existing RF transceivers in terms of versatility, performance, and cost-effectiveness?
SilverWings introduces an unparalleled standard of power efficiency and minimal power usage compared with any RF and mixed signal transceiver available on the market. Conversely, its integrated RF gain and the ability to support fast AGC stand out as exceptional features unique to this product, distinguishing it from other transceiver solutions. Furthermore, the elimination of IQ imbalance and Lo leakage corrections further enhances its appeal. With the combination of these attributes, SilverWings emerges as a versatile solution for any wireless application, seamlessly integrated and boasting low power consumption.
7. What future developments or enhancements can we expect from Arctic Semiconductor in the realm of RF and mixed-signal chipsets, building on the success of SilverWings?
Arctic Semiconductor stands at the forefront as a premier supplier of low-power, cost-efficient chipsets and systems tailored for a wide array of applications including wireless radios, satellite communication, IoT, Industry 4.0, automotive, medical equipment, instrumentation, and user devices. Based on the cutting-edge technology, Arctic Semiconductor offers wide-band RF Front end, high-precision high-speed data converters, and digital processing alongside Serdes, all seamlessly integrated into silicon with an emphasis on extremely low power consumption and compact form factors, catering to the burgeoning markets of tomorrow. With a focus on innovation, Arctic is planning to enable Artificial Intelligence both in terms of a true all-encompassing connectivity and by forging a seamless connection between the Analog and Digital domains.
