Barcelona, Spain – (BUSINESS WIRE) – February 26, 2026 – MaxLinear, Inc. (Nasdaq: MXL), a leading provider of wireless infrastructure solutions, today announced that it will demonstrate its newest advancements in RAN radio technologies at MWC Barcelona 2026. Attendees visiting meeting room 2L8MR in Hall 2 will see demonstrations of how MaxLinear’s Sierra single-chip radio SoC helps OEMs develop new innovative Open RAN Radio Units (O-RUs) addressing the key challenges faced by Mobile Network Operators (MNO). MaxLinear will showcase how Sierra’s embedded Passive Intermodulation (PIM) cancellation technology enables development of smaller and lighter Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) Massive MIMO O-RUs as well as several new highly compact and power-efficient O-RUs powered by Sierra.

Uplink traffic is rapidly becoming the next major network bottleneck as user behavior shifts toward high-bandwidth uploads such as live video and social content. MNOs are pursuing FDD Massive MIMO as a targeted way to address uplink-constrained networks. However, FDD Massive MIMO radio unit size, weight, and cost have remained key barriers to deployment.

“Uplink traffic is growing faster than downlink traffic and will accelerate in the era of Physical AI.  There’s a strong need for uplink capacity in the critical low bands where FDD mMIMO can make all kinds of devices work better. This integration makes FDD Massive MIMO more practical for real-world upgrades.”, said Joe Madden, Principal Analyst at Mobile Experts.

Sierra helps address these challenges at the architecture level with embedded PIM cancellation. In FDD systems, downlink transmission generates PIM products that fall directly into the uplink receive band and reduce receiver throughput. Traditional FDD systems use high performance cavity filters to minimize PIM effects, but these filters are large, heavy, and expensive. By being able to cancel up to 20dB of PIM on each receive path with advanced signal processing, Sierra enables the use of smaller, lighter and cheaper ceramic filters instead of bulky cavity filters.

“Uplink demand is rising faster than network capacity, driving operators to look at FDD Massive MIMO as a practical way to relieve uplink congestion. But OEMs are challenged to deliver that capability without excessive cost and complexity,” said Puneet Sethi, Senior Vice President of MaxLinear’s Network Infrastructure & Carrier BU. “Sierra is already a proven carrier grade solution for single- and multi-band macro radio units. Now, by using PIM cancellation to eliminate the need for bulky cavity filters, Sierra is enabling OEMs to build simpler, lighter FDD Massive MIMO radios that operators can deploy at scale to address the uplink demand challenge.”

At Mobile World Congress, MaxLinear will demonstrate these capabilities live, highlighting Sierra’s PIM cancellation performance and showcasing multiple Sierra-driven radios. The demonstrations will take place in Hall 2, meeting room 2L8MR.

For more information on Sierra, visit www.maxlinear.com/sierra

About MaxLinear, Inc.
MaxLinear, Inc. (Nasdaq: MXL) is a leading provider of radio frequency (RF), analog, digital, and mixed-signal integrated circuits for access and connectivity, wired and wireless infrastructure, and industrial and multi-market applications. MaxLinear is headquartered in Carlsbad, California.
For more information, please visit www.maxlinear.com.