RF Micro Devices has released what’s said to be the industry's first fully integrated 5.8 GHz transmitter to comply with China's electronic toll collection (ETC) standard: "GB/T 20851.1-2007: Electronic Toll Collection - Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) Part 1: Physical Layer." RFMD's ML5830 is a low-power, amplitude shift key (ASK) and frequency shift key (FSK) transmitter operating in the 5.8 GHz ISM band. It is designed for electronic toll collection applications, including on board units (OBUs) and road side units (RSUs).
With the implementation of RFMD's proprietary FastWave microcontroller technology, the ML5830 eliminates the cumbersome mass production tuning process necessary with competing solutions. FastWave™ microcontroller technology enhances performance through self-alignment of the VCO, filtering and phase locked loop (PLL) detection and control. FastWave also enables user-specific application configurations through modifications via a three-wire serial interface to transmitter control, calibration and interface algorithms.
Alastair Upton, general manager of RFMD's Broadband and Consumer Business Unit, said, "As the industry's first fully integrated 5.8GHz transmitter to comply with China's ETC standard, the ML5830 significantly accelerates time-to-market for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) while allowing RFMD to participate in a growing market segment for wireless data. Also, with the implementation of our proprietary FastWave microcontroller technology, the ML5830 delivers incremental benefits to designers and OEMs in time savings and simplified design."
"After testing and evaluating the ML5830, we have concluded that its features and functions do comply to the DSRC products according to Chinese National Standard, and do meet China ETC National Standard requirements," said Huang Wei-Ming of Guangzhou ITS Communications Equipment Co. Ltd. "Our company is in the process of designing in the ML5830 and we target to commence mass production with our end product in May 2009."
The ML5830 integrates an upconversion mixer, a buffer/pre-driver amplifier and an ASK modulator capable of producing a typical output power of +4 dBm. The ML5830's unique design provides designers industry-leading ease-of-implementation and a minimal external bill-of-materials (BOM) count as well as improved time-to-market for OEMs. The ML5830's FSK mode provides digitally selectable data rates of 1 and 2 Mbps. Importantly, the ML5830 also incorporates a fully integrated fractional-N synthesizer, a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) and the necessary filtering to digitally switch to a higher power, higher data rate FSK modulation mode, providing OEMs the flexibility to meet both current and future needs of the ETC market.
RF Micro Devices, www.rfmd.com
