News

GaN-on-Si RF Systems Technology and Power Devices Advance

October 10, 2017 by Paul Shepard

MACOM Technology Solutions Inc. announced the newest entry in its GaN-on-Si power transistor portfolio for pulsed L-Band radar systems targeted for airport surveillance radar (ASR) applications at 1.2- to 1.4-GHz.

MACOM also announced that its RF Energy Toolkits are now available for order, meeting surging customer demand for a flexible and cost-effective development platform that helps accelerate their time to market with high-performance, power efficient solid-state RF systems.

Targeted for use in commercial markets ranging from cooking, lighting and industrial heating/drying to medical/pharmaceutical, automotive ignition systems and beyond, MACOM's RF Energy Toolkits enable engineers to quickly and easily take advantage of GaN-on-Si as a high-precision, high-efficiency energy source.

GaN-on-Si RF Power Transistors

Delivering industry-leading efficiency at peak pulse power levels up to 500W, the new MAGX-101214-500 is expected to outperform premium-priced GaN-on-SiC-based transistors, and far exceed the performance, efficiency and power density of legacy LDMOS-based devices.

MACOM's new MAGX-101214-500 enables customers to scale to higher power levels across a host of ASR applications, delivering 500W output power and greater than 70% power efficiency under pulsed conditions at 50 V operation. Supplied in a small-footprint ceramic flanged package and supporting matching structures that minimize circuit size, MAGX-101214-500 transistors help to enable rugged, compact radar systems underpinned with efficient, simplified cooling and power supply architectures.

The MAGX-101214-500 builds on the established success of MACOM's comprehensive portfolio of GaN-on-Si power transistors, which have demonstrated field-proven reliability in harsh environmental conditions. To date, over one million MACOM GaN-on-Si devices have been shipped to customers around the world.

"The continued expansion of MACOM's GaN-on-Si product portfolio enables customers to address an ever-widening range of RF power requirements while achieving performance profiles that meet and exceed GaN-on-SiC, at significantly less cost at scaled volume production levels," said Greg French, Senior Product Manager, RF Power, at MACOM.

"Our proven technology leadership in GaN-on-Si combined with our decades-long heritage in civil and defense radar are among the many factors fueling our innovation in these important markets, as evidenced by the new MAGX-101214-500," concluded French.

RF Energy Toolkits Available

The all-in-one versatility and ease-of-use of MACOM's RF Energy Toolkit streamlines development cycles and costs for GaN-on-Si-based RF systems, equipping engineers to overcome the limitations of legacy magnetron power sources while achieving significantly higher efficiency than LDMOS-based systems, at comparable cost structures.

With the Toolkit, designers are enabled to fine-tune RF energy output for any application requirements, with push-button ease and an intuitive display interface. OEMs designing for more complex RF energy applications can tap MACOM and its partner network for custom applicator and algorithm development, plus expert engineering support.

MACOM's RF Energy Toolkits can scale power output up to 300W leveraging the onboard MACOM GaN-on-Si power transistor, and can be easily paralleled for higher power applications. The Toolkits support pulsed and continuous wave operation at the 2.45GHz frequency band. Future Toolkits will support the 915MHz frequency band.

"Commercial OEMs have awakened to the massive market opportunity for GaN-on-Si-based solid-state RF systems which essentially remove most of the limitations of magnetron based systems, but they're new to this technology, and design and development challenges have slowed their time to market - until now," said Mark Murphy, Senior Director, RF Power, at MACOM.

"The RF Energy Toolkit affords them an all-in-one, adaptable ‘Swiss army knife' solution that removes the engineering barriers that have impeded OEMs' adoption of RF energy, liberating them to take giant strides forward on the path to mainstream commercialization," stated Murphy.