Telecom / chip business force, multi-frequency multi-mode LTE stationed in mobile devices

The multi-band multi-mode LTE solution will make significant inroads into mobile devices. Under the strength of the world's largest telecommunications operator and mobile processor supplier, both 2G, 3G and TD / FDD-LTE specifications of telecommunications networks and chips are in place, which will help accelerate the upgrade of new generation mobile devices to LTE Multi-frequency and multi-mode specifications greatly improve the user's data transmission operation experience.

According to the latest report of the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), as of July 2013, a total of 948 long-term evolution plan (LTE) terminal products have been released globally, including 316 smartphones and 76 Most of the tablet devices already support the LTE multi-frequency and multi-mode specifications. Therefore, major telecom operators are actively involved in the deployment of TDD / FDD-LTE multi-mode networks to meet the needs of end users for international roaming.

During the 2013 Global Mobile Communications Conference (MWC), China Mobile, together with telecommunications operators such as BharTI India and Clearwire USA, also invited Qualcomm, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Samsung ) And other companies jointly hold the Global TD-LTE Development Initiative (GTI) Summit. Xi Guohua, chairman of China Mobile, said that with the promotion of GTI, many TD / FDD-LTE telecom operators including China Mobile, Clearwire and Korea Telecom (KT) have successfully completed roaming tests; 11 band multimodes promoted by GTI MiFi has also been successfully developed, showing that TD / FDD-LTE is technically capable of global roaming.

Telecom / chip vendors fully support multi-frequency multi-mode LTE

In July 2013, a total of sixteen TD-LTE commercial networks have been opened worldwide. During MWC, China Mobile also jointly released eight latest TD-LTE products with multiple companies, including four smartphones and four LTE MiFi products. It also supports TD-LTE, FDD-LTE, time-sharing and synchronization Industrial access (TD-SCDMA), wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), global mobile communication system (GSM) five communication modes and mainstream frequency bands of each mode to meet users' international roaming needs.

As of the end of February 2013, the processors of the above terminals were supported by Qualcomm and other manufacturers. In China Mobile's TD-LTE testing and terminal procurement, the number of terminal products supported by Qualcomm processors ranked first.

There are currently 40 different radio frequency (RF) frequency bands in the world. The industry believes that inconsistent frequency bands are the biggest obstacle to the design of LTE terminals worldwide. In response to the demand for "multi-frequency multi-mode" promoted by China Mobile and other telecommunications operators, Qualcomm has The mobile phone RF Front-end introduces a new generation of complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) power amplifiers (PA), which can help solve the problem of inconsistency in the RF spectrum of cellular networks and enable a single mobile device to support all 4G LTE worldwide Standard and spectrum design.

The solution includes a series of chipsets that can alleviate the "complex frequency band" problem while improving RF performance, making it easier for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to develop and support the seven major network standards (FDD-LTE, TD- LTE, WCDMA, EV-DO, CDMA 1x, TD-SCDMA and GSM / EDGE) multi-frequency and multi-mode mobile devices (Figure 1). Regarding the CMOS PA solution, many industry insiders believe that this move is revolutionary for the development of LTE multi-band multi-mode mobile phones.

Figure 1 Multi-band multi-mode LTE conceptual diagram

At the same time, in order to deploy the LTE-Advanced market in advance, chip manufacturers have also invested heavily in the development of carrier aggregation (CA) technology. Among them, Qualcomm has taken the lead in launching the first RF transceiver that supports carrier aggregation, greatly increasing the frequency bands that can be supported. Quantity, including all cellular models and all 2G, 3G and 4G / LTE frequency bands and frequency band combinations that have been deployed globally or are in commercial planning. In addition, the new solution has integrated high-performance global satellite positioning system (GPS) silicon intellectual property (IP), and supports GLONASS satellite positioning and Beidou satellite navigation systems.

It is worth noting that as mobile devices move towards lower prices, the design of application processors integrated with LTE modems is gradually gaining popularity (Figure 2), which will help mobile phone manufacturers spawn next-generation high-end affordable smartphones.

Figure 2 Multi-core application processor integrated multi-mode baseband processor design architecture diagram

FDD / TD-LTE hybrid network construction accelerates

In terms of FDD / TD-LTE multi-mode coexistence, China Mobile Hong Kong has officially launched the TD-LTE commercial network in December 2012. This network is not only the first officially commercial TD-LTE network under China Mobile, It is also the first FDD / TD-LTE converged commercial network in Asia, which will contribute to the global promotion of LTE converged networking.

In addition to telecommunications companies, international companies such as Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson and Qualcomm are also committed to promoting network infrastructure and terminal devices that support both FDD-LTE and TD-LTE. Taking the processor as an example, all LTE processors currently introduced by Qualcomm support FDD / TD-LTE multi-frequency multi-mode. According to market research institutes, a total of 47 million FDD-LTE modems were shipped worldwide in 2012, and Qualcomm ’s 3G / LTE chip market share was 86%. As a result, subsequent products expected by other chip manufacturers will also include LTE multi-frequency and multi-mode as basic specifications.

As for the next stage of the LTE-Advanced field, there are already chip vendors that released related solutions during the MWC in 2013, which can support LTE carrier aggregation and LTE Category 4, with a peak data transmission rate of up to 150 Mbit / s, which is suitable for ultra-thin models Notebook computers, tablet devices or 2-in-1 (2-in-1) mobile computing devices are expected to be commercially available in the second half of 2013.

LTE multi-band multi-mode mobile phone will be unveiled

With the LTE network infrastructure and chips already in place, terminal brand players are also fully sprinting for the design of new multi-band multi-mode LTE models, including ASUS PadFone Infinity, HTC New One, LG Optimus G Pro, Sony (Sony) ) Xperia Z Ultra and Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A are all available.

Take Asus's PadFone Infinity announcement at the MWC conference as an example. Its built-in 1.7GHz processor supports LTE / dual carrier HSPA + multimode. In addition, HTC further established cooperation with China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom through New One to jointly promote multi-frequency and multi-mode LTE models in the mainland China market to seize business opportunities.

According to Samsung's latest product news, the company's upcoming flagship smartphone Galaxy S4 LTE-A will also be the first to support LTE-Advanced mobile networks.