Satellite Technology Feature Article
February 17, 2010
SkyCross Combines iMAT Antenna Technology with Advanced Digital Band-Switching for LTE
By Calvin Azuri, TMCnet Contributor
SkyCross has announced it combined its iMAT antenna technology with advanced digital band-switching to deliver its iMAT antenna offering for LTE (News - Alert).
The iMAT antenna offering delivers exceptional performance with up to 2.5x faster 4G data rates, and also supports the legacy wireless protocols that operate alongside LTE.
In addition, the antennas utilize a patented antenna design technique that enables a single optimized antenna element to take the place of multiple antennas through the use of multiple feed points. Each feed accesses the antenna as if it consisted of multiple antennas, each with high isolation, low correlation and high per-feed antenna efficiency.
This in turn lowers cost, improves MIMO performance and streamlines the integration process when compared to traditional antennas.
Since LTE devices must support legacy 3G networks as well as added features, band-switching technology from SkyCross (News - Alert) enables the antenna to tune across multiple frequencies as required for the function operating on the device at that moment. This further reduces the space occupied by the antenna.
Currently, SkyCross designs support up to 10 bands including 700 MHz band 13 and 17 for North American LTE, 2600 MHz band 7 for global LTE carriers, as well as legacy penta-band 3G cellular, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.
Company officials also said they can apply the antenna technology to support any combination of bands needed, so that device manufacturers can select which bands apply to their designs.
Calvin Azuri is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Calvin’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi
