Power amplifier doubles efficiency in mobile base stations
"Our power amplifier architecture brings real sustainability to the world’s mobile operators," said Mattias Astroem, Eta Devices’ co-founder and CEO. "We deliver 70% drain efficiency for 4G LTE — an industry first. By deploying our solution, base station efficiency is doubled compared to current state-of-the-art technology, which saves a tremendous amount of power."
Eta Devices, a spin-off from the electrical engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), first demonstrated its new power amplifier technology at the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February.
"Until today, mobile operators have not been able to build genuinely sustainable mobile networks," said Joel Dawson, MIT professor and Eta Devices co-founder and chief technology officer. "They have had no choice other than to focus on relatively minor sustainability initiatives such as changing the vehicle fleet to improve fuel economy, office recycling and substituting some flights with video conferences. While commendable, these initiatives have not touched on the operators’ core business of running mobile networks and as a result the impact has been relatively minor. But, there’s a new game in town. Operators can now double the efficiency of their mobile networks and realize substantial reductions in power usage, resulting in a major reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and at the same time huge cost savings from using less power."
On a global level, mobile networks consume approximately 120 TWh of electricity per year.
"If Eta Devices’ solution is deployed on a worldwide basis by mobile operators, it would result in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking more than 7 million cars off the road," said Astroem. "It would also save mobile operators $18 billion per year in utility costs thereby paying for the replacement many times over."
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