Qorvo, I'm sure most people will be unfamiliar with this name, but if you take apart almost any mobile phone, you can see a large number of components from the world's leading RF, connectivity and power suppliers.
Although Qorvo was only founded in 2015, it has not been around for a long time, but it has grown rapidly and is already one of the top 500 companies in the S&P Index.
The company currently has more than 8,500 employees worldwide, revenue of $3.6 billion in fiscal 2023, and approximately 8 billion devices shipped annually.
Through continuous expansion and mergers and acquisitions, Qorvo's product line has been quite extensive, and the most well-known and powerful is in the field of smartphones, especially the independent and integrated PA, antenna, filter, carrier aggregation envelope tracking and other RF front-end combinations, as well as Wi-Fi, UWB, power management, pressure sensing, etc.
These technologies and advantages have also been brought to the automotive field by Qorvo, including RF, power management, as well as automotive interconnection, in-vehicle interconnection (Wi-Fi/Matter/Bluetooth), especially UWB has been greatly promoted, pressure sensing can also replace many traditional mechanical buttons, as well as automotive motor control, power management.
In addition, Qorvo also has a broad and in-depth layout in various fields such as communication base stations, data centers, smart homes, smart wearables, motor management, white goods, and smart manufacturing.
[Wi-Fi 7: A Complete Solution with High Performance and Low Power Consumption]
Qorvo has a deep understanding and solutions for Wi-Fi 7 wireless connectivity technology, as shared by Jeff Lin, senior marketing manager of Qorvo's Asia Pacific Wireless Connectivity Business Unit.
46Gbps maximum data rate, 320MHz channels, 4K QAM modulation, MLO multi-band (multi-link operation), ...... Everyone is familiar with these key features of Wi-Fi 7, as well as the 6GHz frequency band inherited from Wi-Fi 6E.
Due to the different policies of various countries and regions, the 6GHz frequency band has not been fully opened (or may never be), and the specific frequency band distribution is also different.
For example, the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina and other Latin American countries have adopted 5925-7125 MHz, the European Union, Russia, Singapore, Mexico, Chile, South Africa, Malaysia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, etc. have allocated 5925-6425 MHz, and Australia, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Japan, etc. have used 5925-6425 MHz, but 6425-7125 MHz is also being considered.
In June 2023, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) took the lead in allocating all or part of the 6425-7125MHz frequency band for 5G/6G systems, which is expected to allocate the 5925-6425MHz band to Wi-Fi, in line with most international markets.
Lin pointed out that the various leaps in technical characteristics of Wi-Fi 7 pose very severe challenges to the entire connectivity system, such as the need for more front-end modules (FEMs), achieving at least -47dB error vector amplitude (EVM), compatibility with digital predistortion (DPD), efficient use of discontinuous spectrum, and enhanced filtering performance to improve signal isolation.
For example, for EVM, Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) only needs to achieve -30dB, Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) requires -35dB, and Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ac) further increases to -43dB.
Qorvo has made significant progress in Wi-Fi 7 to address these challenges, offering a complete range of wireless front-end RF modules and filter solutions, as well as low power consumption and a small package that provides greater space and flexibility for product development.
Lin further explained that to address the new challenges of Wi-Fi 7, Qorvo has adopted a nonlinear FEM+DPD approach, which enables DPD compensation technology to achieve performance comparable to linear FEM with little to no processor power consumption.
This solution not only solves the EVM problem well, but also greatly improves energy efficiency, for example, on a tri-band 12-stream router, it is expected to save about 6 watts of power consumption.
Qorvo also offers linear Wi-Fi 7 FEM with excellent linearity and low power consumption, small package and high integration.
In addition, Qorvo offers a range of "bulk acoustic wave" (BAW) filters for Wi-Fi 6/6E/7 that are tailored to different wireless bands, covering both the 5GHz band (UNII 1-3) and the 6GHz segment (UNII 5-8).
As for the future of Wi-Fi 8, Lin Jianfu revealed that it is still in the discussion stage, and it may take another four or five years to see, but Wi-Fi 7 has pushed the existing technology to the limit, especially 4K QAM.
If you expect Wi-Fi 8 to achieve 8K QAM, it is not possible to do it at present, but it is also a challenge, and it is difficult to say how to do it in the future.
There is also the problem of the 6GHz frequency band, and there may not be a standard answer or solution in the world, after all, each country and region has its own regulations.
In fact, Wi-Fi 8 may not be too innovative, and it may be ported something from cellular.
[Battery management: single-chip 20-string cells, the first in the industry]
Whether it is a smart phone, a smart home, a smart wearable, or an electric vehicle, the battery is the core power source, and in addition to the continuous optimization and development of battery technology, how to efficiently manage the battery to ensure its safety, stability and longevity is the top priority.
Qorvo has the broadest portfolio of power management chips (PMICs), power-loss protection PLP, DC/DC regulators, battery management systems (BMS), intelligent motor control, silicon carbide (SiC) and more to meet the power, protection and control needs of industrial, enterprise, consumer and automotive applications.
Qorvo also offers QSPICE software for analog and mixed-signal simulation, which greatly improves engineer productivity.
In terms of BMS intelligent battery management technology, Qorvo innovatively integrates high-performance microcontrollers (MCUs) and analog front-ends (AFEs) into a single chip, greatly simplifying the system architecture and significantly improving system performance, reliability and intelligence, said Yichi Zhang, senior account manager at Qorvo.
It is the first in the industry to support the precise management of 20 strings of cells on a single chip, with digital-analog hybrid technology, and integrated controller, storage and communication interfaces, and fully supports different types of battery packs such as lithium-ion, lithium-polymer, and lithium iron phosphate.
The chip also integrates Fuel Gauging, SOC, SOH and other algorithms, which can greatly improve the accuracy, speed and flexibility of data acquisition and calculation.
Currently, Qorvo BMS chips are in production in two series, both of which are single-chip solutions.
Among them, the PAC2214x series has a built-in Arm Cortex-M0 MCU, with a main frequency of 50MHz, integrated 32KB Flash, 8KB SRAM, and a package size of only 9×9mm.
The PAC2514x series has a built-in Arm Cortex-M4 MCU with better performance, the main frequency has also been increased to 150MHz, the Flash and SRAM capacities have been increased to 128KB and 32KB respectively, and the package size is only 10×10mm.
Both series are fully equipped with six functions, including charge and discharge management, short-circuit protection, over-current and over-voltage protection, battery monitoring, battery balancing, and low-power control, which can comprehensively manage and optimize battery efficiency and life, while meeting the two major needs of safety and long battery life.
In addition to hardware, Qorvo also provides customers with a wealth of development resources, including hardware support, various tools, battery management algorithms and software, advanced algorithms, IDE development environments, etc., which can greatly shorten the development cycle, reduce product costs, improve product reliability and flexibility.
[Sensor fusion: can be used in almost any field and any material]
In this era of digital human-computer interaction, pressure sensing is also a key business for Qorvo to build and promote, and it can replace a large number of other sensing methods, such as in automobiles, the central control, body, door, window, etc., can be replaced by pressure sensing instead of traditional mechanical buttons.
In fact, as long as you want to get a mechanical button, you can do it through pressure sensing.
Regardless of the field and device in which it is used, the requirements for the sensor are very demanding: the accuracy and sensitivity must be very high, the response must be very fast, the size must be very small, the power consumption must be very low, and the adaptability to the mode of operation and environmental conditions must be very extensive.
Qorvo has created innovative Sensor Fusion solutions, including MEMS Force and ForceGauge, which can be used in a wide range of applications such as smartphones, automobiles/two-wheelers, smart homes, smart wearables, AR/VR mixed reality, motor management, white goods, smart manufacturing, and many other fields.
This is a complete solution including MEMS sensors, ASIC chips, mechatronics structures, software, etc., which can turn traditional buttons into fashionable, intelligent and convenient control interfaces, with high precision, high sensitivity, high linearity, ultra-low power consumption and other excellent characteristics.
It supports a wide range of inputs and works with virtually any material, including metal, plastic, glass, leather, and more, and is unaffected by most environmental factors.
For example, in automotive design, Qorvo's sensor fusion solution combines pressure sensor technology with smart surfaces to prevent accidental touches, greatly improving the driving experience and driving safety, and further enriching the user experience.
For example, in wearable products, this solution can overcome the shortcomings and shortcomings of traditional capacitive touch and sliding control, such as large footprint, insufficient control accuracy, and greater influence by stains/liquids/weather, etc., to provide a thinner and simpler experience.
For example, in smart home products, Qorvo's technology is more waterproof, stain-resistant, and highly sensitive and accurate, making human-computer interaction more convenient, intelligent and smooth.
By presenting its innovations in a number of areas, Qorvo once again demonstrates its multi-faceted technical capabilities and sensitivity to market dynamics and trends.
With a broad portfolio of technologies and products, Qorvo will continue to advance in a wide range of applications including mobile communications, infrastructure, power management, IoT, automotive and consumer electronics to meet the market's demand for high-power, energy-efficient and high-performance systems.