Recent developments in WiFi system and related challenges in power amplifier design

The explosive growth of the smart phone and other mobile devices has created a wireless tsunami for both wireless service providers and ordinary consumers. The most important feature for these mobile devices is the internet access and multiple technologies are being used. IEEE 802.11 based WiFi system is the default choice for all of these mobile devices. There have been constant growing demands for optimizing the WiFi system performance and usage. To meet these demands the IEEE 802.11 standard has also been constantly evolving to achieve higher data throughput and spectral efficiency. The newer WiFi standards have been introduced recently which creates newer technical challenges to the WiFi front-end-module (FEM) and power amplifier design. This paper will discuss new advanced WiFi system and related new design requirements on the power amplifiers.