Eta Wireless has introduced a power management IC to address the power challenges with 5G mobile phones. To achieve the gigabit speeds promised by this new generation of communications technology, the power amplifier in the mobile device will become significantly less efficient, wasting up to 95 percent of its energy as heat.

Eta Wireless’ ETA7 uses the company’s ETAdvanced digital envelope tracking (ET) to reduce energy consumption up to 50 percent, by adjusting the supply voltage to match the radio signal. By reducing the heat dissipation of the power amplifier, ETAdvanced improves the thermal performance of the phone, giving phone designers the option to improve the industrial design by shrinking form factor.

According to Eta Wireless, ETAdvanced is the first power management solution for wideband millimeter wave devices, supporting the 800 MHz bandwidth defined in the 5G New Radio (NR) standard. Legacy analog ET approaches used in the current generation of phones cannot support the wide channel bandwidths established by the standard.

We expect ETA7 to become a core enabler for 5G because ETAdvanced addresses the most frustrating problem in mobile devices. People can now enjoy all benefits that 5G will bring, without constantly looking for a power outlet to charge their phone.” — Mattias Astrom, Eta Wireless founder and CEO

ETAdvanced is based on ET technology for mobile base stations developed by two Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professors who formed Eta Devices. In October 2016, Nokia acquired Eta Devices to apply the technology to base stations; Eta Wireless was subsequently founded to address mobile devices.

The ETA7 joins two earlier power management ICs from Eta Wireless: the ETA5 for LTE and ETA6 for Wi-Fi.