With the shift to larger screens and larger batteries in mobile handsets, the space for antennas has been reduced, negatively impacting performance. To compensate, RF front-ends have countered by delivering an additional 1-2 dB of transmitted power – this has led to the need for RF front-ends with higher power handling
For example, T-Mobile’s High Power User Equipment (HPUE) requires Band 41 RF front-end chains to put out 3dB additional power to achieve better cell coverage. In the future, carriers in China could require 5G n41, n78, n77, and n79 to have a similar requirement, thus posing a challenge to existing low-power filter solutions.
HPUE power requirements are expected to extend to the new 5G spectrum operating in the 2.5 to 5GHz range.
