Plextek RFI to present on X-Band PA design
Liam Devlin, CEO of Plextek RFI, a UK based design house specialising in the design and development of RFICs, MMICs and microwave/mmwave modules, will be presenting a webinar entitled 'Designing X-Band PAs Using SMT Plastic Packaged GaN Transistors' on 3 December 2015. The webinar, which will take place at at 18:00 GMT is sponsored by Keysight Technologies.
According to the company, the use of over-moulded SMT plastic packaging greatly simplifies handling and assembly and reduces unit cost. However, as operating frequencies and RF output power increase, so do the challenges of using SMT packaging.
This webcast describes the design of power amplifiers (PAs) at X-Band using plastic packaged SMT GaN transistors. The design approach is illustrated with a detailed description of the design, layout, EM simulation, fabrication and evaluation of a single stage 5 W X-Band GaN PA.
The amplifier is optimised for the 9.3 to 9.5GHz band, has 11dB small-signal gain and provides more than +37dBm output power at 3dB gain compression, with a corresponding drain efficiency of greater than 55 percent.
The design is based on a commercially available discrete 0.25µm GaN transistor (the TGF2977-SM from Qorvo) mounted on a Rogers 4003 PCB. Fast drain switching circuitry is also included on the same PCB to facilitate pulsed operation, with a turn-on time of just 20ns.
