Macom GaN Transistors achieve 79 percent Efficiency
Macom has announced the newest entries in its MAGb series of GaN-on-silicon power transistors for use in macro wireless basestations.
Based on Macom's Gen4 GaN technology, the new MAGb-101822-240B0P and MAGb-101822-120B0P power transistors harness the performance benefits of GaN in rugged, low-cost plastic packaging, enabling improved cost efficiencies.
The new plastic TO-272-packaged MAGb-101822-240B0P and MAGb-101822-120B0P power transistors provide 320W and 160W output peak power, respectively, in the load-pull system with fundamental tuning only, and cover all cellular bands and power levels within the 1.8 to 2.2GHz frequency range. These transistors' ability to operate over 400MHz of bandwidth precludes the need to use multiple LDMOS-based products, further optimising cost and design efficiencies, according to Macom.
Plastic-packaged MAGb power transistors deliver power efficiency up to 79 percent - an improvement of up to 10 percent compared to LDMOS offerings - with only fundamental tuning across the 400MHz RF bandwidth, and with linear gain of up to 20dB. These transistors provide a compelling alternative to ceramic-packaged devices without compromising RF performance or reliability - thermal behavior is improved by 10 percent compared to ceramic-packaged MAGb offerings.
These power transistors enable the implementation of a simple symmetric Doherty amplifier design while maintaining excellent RF performance compared to lesser performing and complex asymmetric Doherty topologies imposed by LDMOS-based transistors. With Macom's MAGb series transistors, Doherty amplifier implementations show the same level of DPD (Digital Pre-Distortion) friendliness as LDMOS-based solutions, according to the company.
Macom is hosting joint demonstrations with Xilinix's DPD solution at IMS 2016, in San Fransisco, USA, this week.
"DPD is critical to increase the efficiency of power amplifiers for 4G and 5G basestation applications and has a significant impact on network operators' operating expenses and capital expenditures," said Chris Dick, chief DSP architect at Xilinx. "Our joint demonstration with Macom at IMS 2016 will showcase the combined DPD capabilities of Macom's Gen4 GaN-based MAGb power transistors and Xilinx's complementary DPD technologies on our 28nm Zynq SoC and 16nm UltraScale+ MPSoCs. This joint solution highlights the time-to-market advantages that can be achieved with a proven, interoperable DPD solution."
"Our collaboration with Xilinx demonstrates the linearity and ease of correction of our MAGb, especially with signals that are known to be challenging to correct using GaN-based solutions like multi-carrier GSM and TDD-LTE signals," said Preet Virk, senior VP and general manager, Carrier Networks, at Macom. "We believe that with the introduction of our new plastic-packaged MAGb power transistors, we're further extending this price/performance advantage over competiting LDMOS and other GaN technologies, and accelerating the evolution to GaN-based PAs for wireless basestations."
