The world’s smallest 5 W, 20-1500 MHZ PA solution
14 June 2011
Nitronex has developed the industry’s smallest broadband 5W PA solution.
Designated the NPA1003, the GaN PA MMIC features a 4 mm x 4 mm thermally-enhanced QFN package with RF input and output matched to 50 ohms.
The highly integrated NPA1003 GaN MMIC only requires an external resistor and inductor to provide bias. With output power over 5 W from 20 to 1500 MHz and typical efficiency of over 50%, the overall solution size is less than 0.25 square inches.
“The new NPA1003 has created a pull in the market that we fully anticipated it would,” commented Gary Blackington, VP of Sales and Marketing at Nitronex. “This new device has filled a market void with the right power, gain, frequency response, compact size, and ease of use all at the right price point. We have already achieved several design-ins at top tier accounts.”
Ray Crampton, VP of Engineering at Nitronex, added: “Nitronex’s MMIC process was established under a joint development agreement with a large military contractor, resulting in a fully-qualified, production-ready process in July 2009. We have worked with multiple strategically selected customers since 2009 to develop and produce custom MMICs and have shipped more than 50,000 production devices to customers. Nitronex’s proprietary GaN-on-Si process has a significant advantage. Our superior starting substrate quality and cost structure allow us to develop high performance, large area MMICs at competitive prices which gives us the freedom to solve customer problems in ways our competitors can not."
Nitronex’s qualified MMIC process is based on a 28 V, 0.5 µm gate length GaN HEMT and features high voltage capacitors, air bridges, through-wafer vias, nichrome and epi resistors, and two levels of metal interconnect. Furthermore, a 3.5 µm plated gold top metallisation results in low loss inductors, and a high resistivity silicon substrate is used which supports low loss transmission lines to over 20 GHz. Nitronex works closely with strategic customers in both foundry and custom MMIC development activities.
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