Terrestrial Wireless
Linear Signal’s primary and initial focus is centered on making phased arrays cost competitive with reflector based satellite and radar antennas currently in the market. It is our aim to make the superior performance profile of phased arrays or smart antennas feasible for commercial and consumer applications for the first time.
But many of our technologies are just as valuable to WiFi or WiMax antennas. In fact, smart antennas for terrestrial wireless applications are becoming more and more in demand.
Benefits of Beamforming
- Greater distance of signal travel
- Greater data throughput
- Better power usage
- Reusable frequency bands
- Cancellation of interference
- Lower risk of interfering with other devices or services
- Greater service privacy or security
Beamforming
Beamforming has many advantages over traditional wireless transmission and reception including the opportunity to use all the allotted power and band in each beam. Using adaptive beamforming (moving beams), not only can wireless connections be maintained while the transmitter and receiver are moving, but the smaller secondary beams, called sidelobes, can morph and reshape to null changing sources of potential interference.
The one significant drawback with beamforming and the reason beamforming’s advantages are not commonly realized in their optimal form, is the substantial cost.
Beamforming is therefore only used commercially in certain narrow band (voice) consumer-side applications (such as a smart Cellular phone) or basestation side applications where the beamforming costs are minimized or can be amortized over numerous receivers. Wideband, multi- antenna multi-beam consumer side applications are virtually non-existent and base stations are currently limited in the number of beams they can cost effectively create.
Lowering Costs with Ad-A-Beam
Ad-A-Beam delivers equal or better performance at up to 20 times better cost by implementing a unique RF CMOS solution that significantly reduces computational complexity of beamforming, delivers phase and amplitude control with fewer, less complex on-chip components, and requires very small wafer real estate.
Ad-A-Beam offers compelling price points competing technologies may not reach perhaps for a decade, granting immediate access to otherwise unreachable broader and richer consumer markets.
Ad-A-Beam in Many RF Markets
Linear Signal’s Ad-A-Beam family of chips function across most any frequency offering dynamic or adaptive beam-enhanced wideband wireless transmission and reception to myriad products. Chips in the family will serve general and custom beamforming functions for WiFi, WiMax, Wireless HDTV, home theater, VSAT, mobile and SMA uses of Direct Broadcast Satellite, and more.