As demand for wireless broadband grows, so does the importance of cellular base station (BTS) performance. The low noise amplifier (LNA) on the antenna tower is a key element in establishing BTS performance, affecting both the base station’s area of coverage and its tolerance of other nearby transmitters. Integrated LNAs with active bias regulators, such as Avago Technology’s MGA-63x family, provide the noise figure and linearity needed for outstanding BTS performance.
A cellular base station (BTS) design should provide a wide area of coverage while sharing a tower site with multiple wireless transmitters. These attributes allow service providers to use as few tower sites as possible to serve a region and to share the cost of those sites with other users. To meet these coverage and sharing requirements, the BTS architecture needs receivers with high sensitivity to pull in distant cell phone signals while also rejecting strong in-band and out-of-band transmissions from other wireless transmitters nearby.