Benetel - Wireless Product Design Services

Benetel is a design company specialising in wireless and RF product design and test solutions for cellular, automotive, industrial and consumer applications. The scope of our capabilities spans the full product development cycle from system architecture, circuit design, design validation and compliance test to test system development and new product introduction to mass production.

Our engineers have experience in a wide range of wireless systems and are supported by state of the art simulation tools, a modern extensively equipped laboratory and our proprietary automated design validation systems. Benetel's core strengths in RF system design are supported by FPGA, DSP, microcontroller, software and physical design capabilities.

CELLULAR TELECOMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT DESIGN

Benetel are experts in cellular telecommunications equipment design. This includes the GSM, EDGE, UMTS FDD and UMTS TDD standards. Most design projects start with system architecture definition and proceed through device selection, RF line-up analysis to prototype board manufacture and design validation. Key cellular test equipment items available in our lab include R&S FSIQ, SMIQ, AMIQ, CMU and Agilent ESG and VSA signal generators and analysers.

We have developed a fully automated design validation system which enables us to execute the 3GPP conformance tests over a range of test conditions such as frequency, temperature and supply voltage. A very large number of test cases can be executed in a short time. Extensive pre-compliance testing enables us to have a high degree of confidence that designs will proceed smoothly through the compliance test phase and into mass production.

Cellular products developed include:

• GSM BTS transceivers
• UMTS NodeB transceivers
• UMTS mobile RF circuits
• UMTS tower mounted amplifiers

AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS CIRCUIT DESIGN

Benetel has supported customers with the development of a variety of wireless systems for the challenging high performance, low power consumption and low cost constraints of the automotive sector. Many of these products have integral antennas for which we use electromagnetic simulation tools for design and optimisation. Both open area test sites and an anechoic chamber are used for design characterisation.

Examples of automotive systems designed include:

• Automotive radar systems
• Remote keyless entry systems
• Automotive video systems

BLUETOOTH™, GPS AND CONSUMER APPLICATIONS

Many of the wireless systems we have developed are in the consumer products sector. These include systems based on standards such as 802.11, Bluetooth and GPS as well as proprietary systems.

Consumer systems developed include:

• Wireless security systems
• 802.11 bi-directional amplifiers
• Bluetooth enabled GPS receiver
• GPS receivers and tracking devices
• Ultra low power digital music encryption system
• Broadband wireless access system, base station and CPE

AUTOMATED TEST SYSTEMS

Our engineers have been developing and employing automated design validation in wireless product development processes for over 15 years. Key benefits of automated design validation are shorter product development intervals and a high degree of confidence in the integrity of the design. All tests and report generation are automatically executed leaving development engineers free to concentrate on design activities.

We also develop manufacturing test systems comprising of test enclosures and fixtures, equipment racks and associated hardware and the test software.

Test systems are usually in a 19in rack or PXI physical format and software is developed using National Instruments' LabVIEW and TestStand.

Manufacturing test systems developed include:

• UMTS UE and NodeB design validation
• Automotive radar test systems
• Semiconductor device design evaluation
• ISM band manufacturing test systems

RFID

Benetel has developed an RFID system platform comprising of transponder tags, reader and central server. The transponder incorporates a number of sensors to enable the system to perform a variety of roles. Example applications for the RFID system platform would include active RFID asset tracking and industrial supply chain process monitoring.