AWR SOFTWARE IS THE “BACKBONE” IN DESIGNING INDIE, THE WORLD’S FIRST OPERATOR-INDEPENDENT RF HARDWARE PLATFORM

AWR®

SuccessStory

“Collaboration of

antenna design

with RF front-end

module design, on a

common Microwave

Offi ce platform,

enabled breakthrough

success of this

project.”

Juha Ellä (left)Principal Scientist

EPCOS, a TDK group company and

Prasadh Ramachandran (right) Senior Research Engineer

Pulse Finland Oy

PROJECT BACKGROUND

indie is the operator-independent hardware platform that enables global LTE

smartphones. Co-designed and optimized by EPCOS, a TDK group company,

and Pulse Electronics, indie builds on advanced EPCOS multi-feed RF front-end

technology and cutting-edge antenna technology from Pulse Electronics. indie

provides the single RF platform sought by the Next Generation Mobile Network

(NGMN) operator alliance.

THE DESIGN CHALLENGE

The design challenge was to create an operator-independent RF hardware

platform that enables global roaming and downlink inter-band carrier

aggregation for future LTE mobile devices.

THE SOLUTION

The solution relied upon AWR’s software, specifi cally Microwave Offi ce, for the

design of a 3-feed antenna system and RF front-end module architecture. The

software enabled exploration and resulted in the elimination of the need for the

region-specifi c duplexer matching (necessary in single-feed architectures) such

that universal operator-independent applicability resulted. Moreover, the 3-feed

architecture improves the system performance by up to 2 dB, and facilitates

WLAN interoperability given better intermodulation linearity.

Additionally, Pulse used AWR software to create circuit simulations of the

antenna system and the matching circuits, as well as a general documentation

platform. EPCOS used Microwave Offi ce for the circuit simulations of the

front-end module including couplers, switches, duplexers, fi lters and diplexers,

as well as for the modeling of the nonlinear passive duplexer.

The RF front-end module from EPCOS. The 3-feed antenna system from Pulse.

Application:RF Hardware Platform

AWR Software:Microwave Offi ce™

AWR®

SuccessStory

AWR, 1960 East Grand Avenue, Suite 430, El Segundo, CA 90245, USATel: +1 (310) 726-3000 Fax: +1 (310) 726-3005 www.awrcorp.com

© Copyright 2012 AWR Corporation. All rights reserved. AWR is a National Instruments Company.AWR and the AWR logo are registered trademarks and Microwave Offi ce is a trademark of AWR Corporation. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

SS-EPTD-2012.5.12

THE SOLUTION CONTINUES

Key features in Microwave Offi ce that enabled this success:

• Easy to use tool.

• Microwave Offi ce is more intuitive to use than other tools on

the market and the documentation is likewise well received.

• Enables the easy set-up of a single schematic for the testing

of a large number of carrier aggregation pairs within the

antenna and front-end module simulation.

• The AWR technical support is fast and friendly.

• The accuracy of AWR circuit simulation.

• The front-end module performance compared very well to

measurements.

• AWR’s online user-defi ned nonlinear models are fl exible

and easy to implement.

• Quality of library components: models match well with

real life measurements.

AWR Microwave Offi ce makes it possible to accurately predict

the performance of the antenna system together with the RF

front-end module. Without detailed circuit simulation it would not

have been possible to design and optimize the performance of the

new RF hardware platform and to show that the indie platform has

signifi cant benefi ts over traditional approaches. Using Microwave

Offi ce as a “backbone” for the circuit simulation of both the antenna

and the RF front-end module resulted in breakthrough success with

the fi rst universal RF hardware on the market.

Comparison of two antenna/front-end solutions when carrier aggregation band pair 3&7 are selected.

Pulse Mobile Division is a global leader in antennas for

mobile phones, smart phones, tablets and laptops. Pulse

has delivered over 1.5 billion mobile antennas to the leading

manufacturers of mobile devices. Pulse Mobile Division is

headquartered in Kempele, Finland, and has service offi ces in

China, South Korea, Taiwan and the USA.

www.pulseelectronics.com

EPCOS is a group company of TDK Corporation, which markets the product

brands TDK and EPCOS. In addition to its broad portfolio of passive

components, the company is a global market leader in high-frequency

components such as surface acoustic wave (SAW) fi lter products and

modules. These products are used by leading manufacturers of mobile

phones and telecommunications equipment, as well as in a wide range of

automotive safety and telematics applications.

www.epcos.com

indie was nominated for a 2012 Global Mobile

Award — “Best Technology Breakthrough” category

View related video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/ENFO5llSczY