Infineon is sampling under NDA its first devices in a family of GaN on SiC RF power transistors. The devices allow manufacturers of mobile base stations to build smaller, more powerful and more flexible transmitters.

With higher efficiency, improved power density and more bandwidth than currently used RF power transistors, the new devices improve the economics of building cellular infrastructure and pave the way for the transition to 5G.

The devices leverage the performance of GaN technology to achieve 10% higher efficiency and 5x the power density of LDMOS transistors commonly. This translates to smaller footprints and power requirements for the PAs of base station transmitters which operate in either the 1.8-2.2 GHz or 2.3-2.7 GHz frequency range. Future GaN on SiC devices will also support 5G cellular bands up to the 6 GHz frequency range.

Design flexibility and support for the next-generation of 4G technology are additional benefits of GaN devices for RF power applications. The new devices have twice the RF bandwidth of LDMOS, so that one PA can support multiple operating frequencies. They also have increased instantaneous bandwidth available for transmitters, which lets a carrier offer higher dates using the data aggregation technique specified for 4.5G cellular networks.

david manners

July semiconductor sales of $28 billion were flat with June, reports the SIA. The regional split was: US $5.5 billion, Japan $2.6 billion, China $8.1 billion, Asia-Pac/All Other $8.9 billion, Europe $2.8 billion.

While US sales were flat, China sales were up 6% m-o-m.

“Global semiconductor sales have slowed somewhat this summer in part due to softening demand, normal market cyclicality, and currency devaluation in some regional markets,” says SIA CEO John Neuffer, “despite these headwinds, year-to-date global sales through July are higher than at the same time last year, which was a record year for semiconductor revenues.”

Y-o-y sales increased in China (5.6%), Asia Pacific/All Other (1.0%), and the Americas (0.8%), but decreased in Europe (-12.5%) and Japan (-13.3%), in part due to currency devaluation.

On a month-to-month basis, sales increased in Japan (2.7%), China (0.6%), and Europe (0.4%), but fell slightly in the Americas (-0.3%) and Asia Pacific/All Other (-2.5%

david manners

Antenna specialist Antenova has designed antennas for On Board Devices (OBD) and vehicle telematics.

The OBD design uses three new antennas inside an OBD housing to link to a satellite (GNSS), Bluetooth and a terrestrial network, whilst obtaining optimum performance from all three antennas simultaneously. The design also features a GNSS RF module to fix location.

Antenova has used the latest antennas from its product ranges in the OBD design:

. the Armata 3G FPC antenna for penta-band frequencies which operates at 824-960 MHz and 1710-2170 MHz,

. a GNSS antenna named Bentoni operating at 1559 – 1609 MHZ,

. a Weii PCB-mounted antenna which provides a Bluetooth connection at 2.4GHZ. All of these are brand new antennas which Antenova has released this year.

The GPS/GNSS module is a complete receiver that provides location tracking for OBDs. It uses the latest MediaTek chipset with an additional LNA to give added performance when mounted under dashboards and out of line of sight with the sky.

Antenova’s product designers recently introduced the concept of “Design For Integration” (DFI), which considers how the RF antenna will operate when it is embedded with a manufacturer’s product.

Antenova’s antennas are always used within a customer’s design, so they are designed to provide RF performance from within the device, and to make the integration of the RF elements easier.

In addition to this, Antenova provides its customers with technical support during the design, integration and testing phases.

“We are demonstrating how a design for an OBD can give great performance, even when new antennas are added to an existing design,” says Antenova’s Colin Newman, “OBD devices are growing fast in popularity, and the design of the RF components is critical to the overall performance of a device. In particular, Antenova’s engineers have invested many years in designing antennas that work effectively in very small spaces, whilst maintaining the efficiency of the antenna.”

david manners

MACOM has announced 2W and 4W power amplifiers in SMT packages.

These 4-stage, fully matched power amplifiers are suitable for Ka-Band SATCOM applications, and provide linearity for either final power amplification stages or driver stages in higher power applications.

The MAAP-011246 operates from 27.5 to 31.5 GHz, providing customers with 23 dB of linear gain, 2W saturated output power and 24% added efficiency.

The device is offered in a 5×5 mm 32-lead QFN package and offers an IM3 level of -25 dBc at 27 dBm Pout/tone, making the power amplifier suitable for high-performance commercial SATCOM uplink terminal applications.

The MAAP-011139 is offered in a 5×5 mm 32-lead QFN package and operates from 28.5 to 31.0 GHz while providing 22 dB linear gain and 23% added efficiency.

The device delivers 4W saturated output power and greater than 27 dBm Pout/tone while maintaining IM3 levels of 30 dBc, which is twice the linear performance of competing alternatives.

MACOM enables the connections that ensure high data-density network performance from L-Band to Ka-Band. For over 60 years, MACOM has serviced the most demanding military and commercial applications on the ground, in the air or at sea.

david manners

ESCATEC has a solution to the challenge of effectively cooling high brightness LEDs.

Its Heat Spreader approach solders the LEDs onto a copper substrate, which is up to ten times more effective at dissipating the heat generated by the LEDs than current solutions.

The CoolRunning design means that LEDs with a power density of up to 10W per mm2 could be passively cooled.

The Heat Spreader was developed in response to a customer visit to ESCATEC’s FutureLab where novel and innovative solutions are developed for LED applications.

“Heat dissipation is always a challenge for LEDs as their compact size means that the LEDs can be packed close together to form a powerful illumination source but that also forms a highly concentrated heat source, for example, when a hundred 5 Amp LEDs are side by side,” explained Wolfgang Plank, Manager of the FutureLab, “our novel Heat Spreader solution opens up compact, high power LEDs of, say 1000W, to be used in many new applications such as stage lighting, architectural illumination and video projectors.”

By starting from the bare LED die, ESCATEC can customise the solution with regards to the size of the package, the shape of the beam so that there are minimal losses, and the wavelength of the light along with its intensity.

This freedom of design enables the LED solution to be appropriately cooled and optimised for the required power consumption. It also enables the lens or lens array to be custom made to provide the exact optics required by the application and ensures that design can be compact with high optical efficiency.

david manners