FEATURE ICS & SEMICONDUCTORS
GAN TRANSISTORS advance microwave & RF
to achieve multi-role functionality, and the higher power, with greater efficiency in a smaller size will also be key factors in meeting the needs of next generation radar systems. Macom offers a broad range of pulsed
and linear RF GaN power transistor products - discrete devices, modules, and pallets designed to operate from DC to 3.5GHz. The company’s GaN on Silicon Carbide (SiC) products, offered as transistors and pallets, utilise a 0.5 micron HEMT process and exhibit excellent RF performance with respect to power, gain, gain flatness, efficiency, and ruggedness over wide operating bandwidths. The latest addition to its GaN on SiC and Si portfolio is the highest power L-Band GaN transistor, MAGX-001214-650L00. This device is a gold-metalised pre-
Douglas Carlson, Vice President of Strategy at Macomexplores the latest 650W peak power GaN on SiC transistor and how it is providing high gain, efficiency & ruggedness over 1.2-1.4 GHz
T
he RF and microwave industry is on the cusp of a major technology transition
with the adoption of Gallium Nitride (GaN) as a workhorse semiconductor technology. The benefits of GaN as a wide band-gap semiconductor in RF and microwave applications are becoming widely understood, and the RF and microwave industry is adopting GaN as a mainstay power technology for military and also increasingly for commercial applications. GaN is a III-V semiconductor material that has key physical properties which provide advantages over more mature technologies such as GaAs and LDMOS in RF and microwave applications. These properties include; large energy band- gap, high electric field strength, high thermal conductivity and increased saturation velocity. GaN’s large energy band-gap was first exploited in commercial markets to mass-produce blue-coloured Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), which at the time, could only emit in the red and yellow spectrum. These bright, blue diodes quickly found a broad range of new applications in flat panel displays, traffic signaling and automotive lighting. Similarly, the key material properties of GaN provide major
22 OCTOBER 2014 | ELECTRONICS
performance advantages in the RF and microwave applications as shown in Fig.1 On one side we see the very high
temperature tolerance and increased power density of GaN lead to solutions that offer more powerful and smaller size solutions in RF and microwave applications. In addition, the larger electric field strength and significantly higher breakdown voltages enable operation at greater voltages which reduces the impedance mismatch in high power circuit designs that in turn leads to improved circuit design for improved power efficiency and wider bandwidth solutions.
SYSTEM BENEFITS OF GAN An example of the system benefits of GaN can be seen in next generation radar systems where designers are being tasked with providing greater functionality, higher power and squeezing more performance into smaller mobile platforms such as UAVs. Greater functionality will require next generation radar systems to perform multiple tasks such as detection, jamming and even communications. The increased bandwidth of GaN solutions will be critical for new systems
Figure 1:
Key material properties of GaN provide major performance advantages in RF and microwave applications
matched GaN on Silicon Carbide transistor that offers high peak power for a single-ended power transistor optimised for pulsed L-Band radar applications. It guarantees 650W of peak power with a typical 19.5dB of gain and 60% efficiency. The device also features very high breakdown voltages allowing stable operation at 50V under more extreme load mismatch conditions. The device is assembled in a high performance ceramic flange package and has undergone rigorous qualification and reliability testing. The new GaN power transistor is well
Figure 2:
The MAGX-001214- 650L00 gold-metalised pre-matched GaN on Silicon Carbide transistor
suited to both civil and military pulsed radar applications. A key advantage of this product is the high power in a single transistor. L Band radar systems can require thousands of watts of pulsed power. This power is achieved by combining multiple power transistors into a final high power solution. The higher power of the company’s new L-Band GaN product allows the entire solution to shrink in size with fewer power transistors in the final output stage. In addition, the higher gain performance reduces the driver requirements of the final stage which further reduces the number of components and power required to achieved the desired performance. Furthermore, the high efficiency performance reduces the overall power consumption. Finally, the high 50V operation and greater VSWR tolerance allows improved system efficiencies through bias advantages at higher voltage without risking damage due to the higher breakdown voltage of GaN.
Macom
www.macom.com +353.21.244.6400
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