Industry's smallest dual band PA duplexer for 3G/4G smartphones?

The new Tritium Duo range combines two band specific power amplifiers and duplexers in a single module. According to TriQuint, this effectively replaces up to 12 discrete components. "We've powered the world's top smartphones with over a half billion of our single band Tritium modules, and now the Tritium Duo is being evaluated by customers for use in next generation smartphones," said Ralph Quinsey, president and chief executive officer of TriQuint. The family shares a common 6 x 4.5mm footprint and has two Pas / two duplexers in a module smaller than a single band PAD. The new dual band Tritium Duo implements TriQuint's proprietary CuFlip technology to replace wire bonds with copper bumps. This is designed to save board real estate and enable superior system performance by eliminating noise radiating wires. According to the company, the copper bumps also dissipate heat better than traditional interconnect techniques. TriQuint claims that the integrated Flip Chip BiHEMT power amplifier die achieves 'industry leading' current consumption to provide maximum talk time and thermal efficiency critical for smartphone applications. It also employs a wafer level packaging technique to provide hermetic filter encapsulation for improved performance and a reduced size. In addition, the modules integrate BAW and SAW duplexer capabilities. "Our broad technology portfolio has enabled us to integrate two commonly used bands in one small footprint," said Quinsey. "Not only have we simplified the rf front end for phone designers, we have also increased performance and flexibility."