Nitronex pushes GaN HEMT below $1/W
Nitronex has added a 100W HEMT to its GaN-on-Si power transistor range, designed specifically for 2.3-2.7 GHz WiMAX applications.
The Durham, North Carolina, company has set the price per unit for a customer ordering more than 1000 of the NPT25100 transistors at $90, meaning that these devices breach the symbolic $1/W cost level.
The company's VP of sales & marketing, Christopher J. Rauh, told compoundsemiconductor.net that Nitronex s customers are experiencing demand pull for high-power WiMAX transistors from Sprint/Nextel in the US and KDDI in Japan.
He anticipates a wave of new high power devices like the NPT25100 becoming available over the coming months as Nitronex and its peers move to supply their customers needs.
The company's “SIGANTIC” NRF1 process yields an economical and well established approach to GaN transistor manufacture.
With assembly methods based on silicon LDMOS techniques, Rauh expects that Nitronex will readily provide the several-thousand unit demand anticipated this year, and could meet demand in the region of 100,000 units.
“We are very confident of our GaN-on-silicon process,” Rauh said, “it is a more than viable means of providing the performance and volumes that our customers require.”
“GaN, as a technology, has already moved from the laboratory into the production line and now we re working on the next generation.”
