Leveraging MACOM's Gen4 GaN technology, the new MAGb series is the industry's first commercial base station-optimized GaN transistor family, achieving leading efficiency, bandwidth, and power gain with linearity and cost structure like LDMOS, and a path to better LDMOS cost at escada volume production levels.
The MAGb series of power transistors targets all cellular bands within the 1.8 GHz to 3.8 GHz frequency range. Initial entries in the product series include transistors delivering up to 400 W peak power in small packages, dual transistors, and a Doherty package configuration delivering up to 700 W peak power in both symmetrical and asymmetrical power supply options. This product series offers up to a 10% improvement in power efficiency and a package size reduction of over 15% compared to previous LDMOS offerings. Based on Gen 4 linear technology, MAGb is easier to linearize and correct using digital pre-distortion (DPD) schemes compared to other GaN technologies.
The power transistors in the MAGb family cover a wider bandwidth than LDMOS, reducing the number of components needed to cover major cellular bands. This new product family offers these advantages while simplifying the Doherty implementation over LDMOS-based transistors and maintaining over 200 MHz of video bandwidth. The MAGB-101822-120B0S is the first product in this family and covers 500 MHz of RF bandwidth between 1.7 GHz and 2.2 GHz. Housed in a small AC-400 ceramic package, it delivers over 160 W of peak power and a peak efficiency of 74% with only fundamental tuning and a linear gain of over 19 dB across the entire 500 MHz band.
Second in this series is the MAGB-101822-240B0S, which has twice the output power of the MAGB-101822-120B0S with a peak power of over 320 W, 19 dB of linear gain, and peak efficiency greater than 72% with fundamental tuning only across a 500 MHz RF bandwidth, housed in an AC-780 ceramic package. The peak efficiency of both parts can be further improved, well above 80%, when the devices feature appropriate harmonic terminations.
This new series unleashes the efficiency, size, and bandwidth advantages of MACOM's 4th Gen GaN. It enables wireless service providers to deploy the latest LTE versions and significantly reduce operating expenses at highly competitive prices, with a scalable supply chain combined with MACOM's best-in-class applications and a design support team with decades of experience.
“We believe that 4th Gen GaN positions MACOM at the forefront of a transformative evolution in base station power amplifiers, enabling a price/performance breakthrough that cannot be achieved with alternative semiconductor technologies,” said Preet Virk, Senior Vice President and Director of Carrier Networks at MACOM. “We anticipate that MACOM’s wireless application expertise and commercial manufacturing scalability, through the MAGB product platform, will bring GaN PAs into the mainstream, unlocking a host of benefits for the next generation of wireless base stations.”
