Ad-A-Beam™ — Low Cost RF CMOS Beamforming

Linear Signal's patents pending Ad-A-Beam family of chips perform Adaptive Analog Beamforming for wideband wireless beam steering and beam shaping applications. Ad-A-Beam reduces costs up to 20 times by replacing expensive digital signal processing (DSP) or traditional phase shifting components, with a novel solution using standard IC fabrication methods.

Ad-A-Beam can be a valuable part of any low cost beamforming application, but is particularly valuable in heavy data streams such as television, radio, and broadband and in applications leveraging numerous antenna elements.

Benefits of Beamforming
  • Greater distance of signal travel
  • Greater data throughput
  • Better power usage
  • Reusable frequency bands
  • Cancellation of sources of interference
  • Lower risk of interfering with other devices or services
  • Greater service privacy or security

Beamforming

Beamforming has many advantages over traditional radio transmission and reception including the opportunity to use all the allowed power and band in each beam. Using adaptive beamforming (moving beams), not only can wireless connections be maintained while the transmitter or receiver is moving, but the smaller secondary beams, called sidelobes, can morph and reshape to avoid changing sources of potential interference. The significant drawback with beamforming is the substantial costs.

In fact, beamforming is used commercially only for narrow band transmitter side applications where the beamforming costs can be amortized over numerous receivers (such as Cellular transmitter). Wideband/multi- antenna receivers (such as satellite television reception) are virtually non-existent.

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.

Ad-A-Beam may also add value and reduce costs in narrow band applications where multiple in-motion beams are required such as in automotive collision detection and avoidance, dense foliage scanning some radar, and autoscanning ultrasound applications.