Javelin Semiconductor intros low-band 3G power amplifiers with industry's highest power efficiency

Mobile World Congress 2012, AUSTIN, USA: Javelin Semiconductor Inc. announced the JAV5505 Band V and JAV5508 Band VIII 3G CMOS power amplifiers (PAs) that deliver the industry’s highest power efficiency at all output power levels. Javelin’s novel PA architecture enables a monolithic solution with high efficiency in high, medium and low power modes.

When averaged across all output power levels, the JAV5505 and JAV5508 current consumption are below 19mA, which is more than a 30 percent reduction over competing devices. At low power levels, the JAV5505 and JAV5508 reduce current by up to 60 percent. This reduction in current can be achieved with a direct connection to the battery, eliminating the need for a DC-DC converter for the PA.

Like all members of Javelin's CMOS PA family, the JAV5505 and JAV5508 provide low noise, high performance and high reliability in an industry-standard 3x3 mm package that is software-compatible with all 3G baseband platforms. With Javelin’s latest PAs, low current is achieved without sacrificing performance and can extend battery life in a broad range of wireless applications including handsets, smartphones, tablets, e-readers and W-CDMA modules.

“Javelin sets a new level of performance with the introduction of our low-band PAs,” said Brad Fluke, president and CEO at Javelin. “We continue to win new designs due to the unprecedented performance and CMOS supply assurances of our PAs, and we are pleased to meet our customers’ requests for support of additional bands. With the JAV5505 and JAV5508, Javelin supports all major 3G frequency bands, meaning that manufacturers will be able to leverage the benefits of Javelin PAs across all of their 3G designs worldwide.”

“The low-current performance of Javelin’s latest PAs is very impressive,” said Brian Modoff, senior wireless equipment analyst at Deutsche Bank. “They have demonstrated the technical advantages of their architecture and the capability of CMOS to be a mainstream 3G PA technology that can outperform traditional GaAs PAs.”

Javelin has 16 patents issued and pending on its innovative mixed-signal architecture. The company’s 3G PAs are implemented in standard CMOS technology and meet or exceed all stringent industry performance and reliability standards. Javelin's PAs offer the best noise performance of any 3G PA on the market today, which improves overall handset performance by minimizing interference with wireless radios such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS.

Javelin’s PAs feature the highest ESD rating in the industry, passing 3 kV on all pins, which enables higher manufacturing yields. Javelin’s low-band PAs also support the MIPI RF front-end (RFFE) digital interface for advanced features including power control.