Envelope tracking feature spreads in Android phones

RF envelope tracking is a very clever way to reduce power waste in the RF power amplifiers of LTE phones. And it has taken off, claims envelope tracking firm Nujira – of course, they would say that wouldn’t they?

But what is a bit more interesting is that the company backs up the claim by listing all the 15 LTE phones currently carrying the functionality. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority are Android.

The full list is:

Samsung Galaxy Note 3
Samsung Galaxy Round
Samsung Galaxy S5
Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini
Samsung Galaxy S5 LTE-A
Apple iPhone 6
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
Google Nexus 5
HTC One M8
Amazon Fire
ZTE Nubla-Z5S
ZTE Grand Memo
Sony Experia Z2 tablet

Nujira did not reveal which envelope tracking technology firm supplied technology in which phone, however.

The company expects the 15 existing phones will account the shipping of around 125 million envelope tracking chips in 2014, and the complete report ‘The market opportunity for envelope tracking’ can be downloaded from the Nujira website.

Steve Bush writes:

With envelope tracking, the voltage of the power supply is modulated to follow the envelope of the RF signal passing through the power amplifier (PA) with just enough headroom to keep the PA running smoothly.

This reduces power dissipation in the power amplifier output transistors.

If the envelope tracking power supply is switch-mode, considerable energy can be saved when transmitting peaky RF signals – which are present in LTE, LTE-A and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.