The RF Power Behind Design Innovation

Power density in active devices is increasing according to the demands of transistor users. Applications in commercial wireless, avionics, broadcast, industrial, and medical systems are pushing the envelope for solid-state power, with growing requirements for higher output power levels from fewer output-stage devices. At Freescale Semiconductor, supplying high-performance radio frequency (RF) and microwave transistors for these applications is only part of the challenge, as the company backs its devices with unparalleled capabilities in characterization, packaging, and applications engineering. Freescale Semiconductor enjoys a rich heritage in fabricating and selling both discrete and integrated RF semiconductors. Last year, the company introduced its seventh generation of silicon RF laterally diffused metaloxide-semiconductor (LDMOS) in the form of the HV7 process, with the output power and linearity performance through 3.8 GHz needed for WiMAX infrastructure applications. They have also announced a highvoltage version of this process, operating at 48 V, for industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) applications. Freescale has also extended its highpower GaAs PHEMT device performance to 6 GHz, for WiMAX amplifier applications. More recently, the company announced the first two-stage radiofrequency integrated circuits (RF ICs) capable of delivering 100 W output power. When driven by Freescale’s cost-effective MMG3005N generalpurpose amplifier (GPA), the MWE6IC9100N and MW7IC181 00N RF ICs form a complete 100-W power-amplifier solution for wireless base stations operating at 900 and 1800 MHz. While the performance levels of these discrete and integrated RF power devices are outstanding, putting the devices into the hands of their customers is only the beginning. Each shipped device is supported by the company’s “service-in-waiting” personnel with diversified expertise in testing, modeling, packaging, and applications support.