RF Power Amp Goes GaN

Freescale Semiconductor is sampling its first RF power amplifier product built using gallium nitride (GaN) technology.

The Texas company’s RF power GaN products initially target the wireless-infrastructure market, with potential future applications including avionics, radar, ISM and software-defined radio.

Advantages of using GaN technology in power amplifiers, according to Freescale, include smaller product form factors, low parasitic loss, elevated power density and higher-frequency operation. Potential GaN cellular applications include quasi-linear, high efficiency (Doherty), high-powered pulsed (non-linear) applications, broadband PAs and switch-mode amplifier configurations.

Freescale’s first GaN product, the AFG25HW355S device, is a 350-watt, high-performance-in-package (HiP), 2:1 asymmetric device with the following features and performance targets:

>> 2.3 GHz-2.7 GHz,
>> 56 dBm peak power,
>> 50 percent efficiency,
>> 16 dB gain and
>> NI-780 packaging.