Lime Microsystems Launches its First Commercially Available Advanced Wireless Multi-band Multi-standard RF Transceiver IC

(Product News, 19 Feb 2009)

Lime Microsystems has announced the availability of LMS6002, a multi-band multi-standard RF transceiver IC designed for femtocells and small cell basestations. The highly frequency agile transceiver operates at user-selectable frequencies between 375MHz and 4GHz and is suitable for 3G, WiMAX, and LTE standards.

"The availability of purpose-designed transceiver silicon that meets femtocells’ requirements in terms of interference, dynamic range, gain control and frequency agility is critical to the widespread deployment of femtocell technology," states Ebrahim Bushehri, CEO of Lime Microsystems. "The LMS6002 not only meets these requirements, it also offers considerable cost and inventory savings for OEMs."

The transceiver can be digitally configured to operate in the full range of frequency bands, with 16 user-selectable bandwidths of up to 28MHz. This means that it can transmit and receive data across all WCDMA and CDMA bands, as well as those used or planned for WiMAX and LTE. This removes the need for individual transceiver chips for each of the different bands, and allows a small cell base station to be reconfigured rapidly and simply. The resulting reduction in bill-of-materials minimizes costs and inventory for OEMs.

Lime announced its first silicon for this device in April 2008. Since then, the device has been through an important evaluation phase with key customers, which has allowed the company to add the required features and optimise the transceiver's performance. LMS6002 is therefore a second-generation device.

The LMS6002 now incorporates a multiplicity of RF inputs and outputs to enable features such as GSM Listen Mode required for femtocell operation. The LMS6002 has a standard Serial Port Interface (SPI) for programming and includes provision for a full calibration function. Fine tuning has resulted in additional performance optimizations which should allow OEMs to use fewer peripheral components, further reducing bill-of-materials and costs for femtocells.

The LMS6002 is packaged in a 9mm x 9mm 116-pin DQFN package, and is available with an evaluation board and associated software. Samples are available now.