Mar 2 2015
Mobile World Congress 2015 – MagnaCom, a recognized technology innovation powerhouse, today announced that its WAM™ technology is available for multi-carrier OFDM standards-based networks, including cellular, Wi-Fi, and cable.
The company’s OFD-WAM™ technology was already demonstrated privately during CES 2015, and is currently being delivered to strategic partners. WAM is fully backwards compatible with QAM, but solves major analog and RF technology barriers for current and higher modulation levels. WAM enables an unprecedented 50% throughput gain and up to a 50% reduction in power.
MagnaCom’s OFD-WAM enables much higher performance, multi-carrier OFDM networks. Carriers can achieve 5G cellular and broadband networks with substantially more data transmitted over the same spectrum, resulting in networks that deliver much higher speeds, have longer reach (coverage), and consume far less power than ever been possible before. Due to its underlying inherent backward compatibility with all existing networks – WAM can enables these advantages with very minor enhancements to existing standards.
“By extending our WAM technology into multi-carrier networks, MagnaCom continues to innovate with performance gains that were once thought impossible," said Yossi Cohen, co-founder and CEO of MagnaCom. “We have a vision of helping the mobile industry solve the 1000x mobile data by enabling carriers get much more out of their spectrum assets, dramatically lowering power consumption, and relentlessly challenging old assumptions. With the emergence of IoT and small wearable devices – the industry’s ability to miniaturize network devices, reduce power and increase distance will be paramount.”
OFD-WAM Cellular and Wi-Fi Technology Benefits
Cellular Example: Even the most modern 4G/LTE cellular networks today are limited to operating at QAM16 single carrier for all uplink connections (the optional standard provision for QAM64, is not practical and has never been achieved to date). Without making any changes to the RF, antenna, or analog front end, OFD-WAM enables a QAM256 equivalent (WAM-8), and with a full multi-carrier OFDM support, while consuming the same overall system power. In this example, OFD-WAM enables a true multi-carrier scheme with the same (or lower) power back-off levels of the single-carrier scheme (SC-FDMA) used all over the world today. In addition to over 200% network capacity, the benefits are tremendous including: superior interference tolerance, effective MIMO modes, and dramatically better performance in severe multipath scenarios with Doppler Spread.
Wi-Fi Example: The latest ‘state of the art’ Wi-Fi networks (802.11ac) can only operate at a maximum of QAM256 today, and this is limited only in optimal conditions of short proximity and minimal interference. Without making any changes to the RF, antenna, or analog front end, OFD-WAM enables a QAM4096 equivalent (WAM-12), while consuming the same overall system power as QAM256 today. In this example, OFD-WAM improves the peak network capacity by 50%. OFD-WAM is able to operate much closer to the PA saturation – which improves overall power efficiency dramatically, saves board space and eliminates costly calibration of inferior techniques. OFD-WAM enables systems with integrated CMOS PA (Power Amplifier) to outperform costly discrete PA implementations.
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a method of digital modulation in which a signal is split into several narrowband channels at different frequencies. OFDM is used in all modern cellular (LTE, 4G) and WiFi (802.11n, 802.11ac) networks today. WAM technology is designed to complement traditional QAM modulation-based technology and serves as a 20-year leap in digital communications, while establishing a scalable platform for all next-generation multi-carrier networks.
Over the past year MagnaCom has engaged with global technology leaders, while also promoting WAM into the predominant 5G work-groups and forums - such as NGMN and IWPC. The company has become a recognized technology innovation powerhouse with over 100 global patents filed and nearly 40 granted and issued US patents, holding over 1000 granted inventions (claims). It has also garnered numerous recognitions and industry awards.
To book a meeting or see our OFDM-WAM demonstration at Mobile World Congress, March 2-5, 2015 in Barcelona, contact [email protected].