The Live Demo Shows How Quickly and Reliably Peregrine’s MPAC–Doherty Device Optimizes an RFHIC GaN Doherty Amplifier at 3.5 GHz
SAN FRANCISCO – IMS 2016 – May 23, 2016 – In booth #2129 Peregrine Semiconductor Corp., founder of RF SOI (silicon on insulator) and pioneer of advanced RF solutions, announces the demonstration of a Peregrine monolithic phase and amplitude controller (MPAC)–Doherty with an RFHIC (booth #821) gallium nitride (GaN) Doherty amplifier at IMS. From May 24-26, IMS attendees can view this demonstration in Peregrine’s booth. Peregrine’s MPAC–Doherty PE46140 will be used with two RFHIC GaN devices—the IE36170WD and the IEQ3656D—in a Doherty power amplifier (PA) configuration. The demo’s live measurements will show how quickly and reliably the MPAC–Doherty controller is able to compensate for Doherty device and manufacturing variations at 3.5 GHz.
“In wireless base stations, GaN has quickly become the technology of choice for power amplifiers, especially in higher frequencies,” says Dr. Samuel Cho, founder and chairman at RFHIC. “RFHIC’s GaN-on-SiC (silicon carbide) power transistors are well positioned to address the needs of this rapidly emerging market. Peregrine’s MPAC–Doherty products provide automated optimization of transceivers that improves Doherty PA yield and performance. These products will play a critical role in the proliferation of GaN by eliminating the need for cumbersome and intensive manual tuning.”
While widely used in the wireless infrastructure industry, Doherty amplifiers require a considerable engineering investment to manually implement and optimize. Any mismatch or misalignment in phase and amplitude between the Doherty architecture’s carrier and peaking paths can quickly contribute to higher costs and degradation of the system’s overall performance. Even after optimizing with discrete components, the system remains inflexible to manufacturing variances from power amplifier assemblies. Peregrine’s MPAC–Doherty products eliminate the need for discrete components and enable phase and amplitude control through a digital interface.
“Peregrine’s MPAC–Doherty devices eliminate the headaches and frustrations in Doherty PA optimization,” says Kinana Hussain, director of marketing at Peregrine Semiconductor. “For this IMS demonstration, we collaborated with GaN PA supplier RFHIC to show how quickly and easily Peregrine’s PE46140 can optimize a GaN Doherty amplifier. As more applications demand phase and amplitude precision, Peregrine’s MPAC product family offers a reliable, consistent and high-performance solution.”
With a frequency range extending from 3.4 to 3.8 GHz, the UltraCMOS® PE46140 is ideal for optimizing GaN-based Doherty PAs. The controller integrates a 90-degree RF splitter, digital phase shifters, a digital step attenuator and a digital serial peripheral interface (SPI) on a single monolithic die. In Doherty amplifier architectures, the PE46140 reduces the bill of materials (BoM) by improving the overall yield of expensive Doherty power amplifier assemblies utilizing high efficiency GaN transistors. Additionally, the controller offers performance advantages in power added efficiency, linearity across the frequency range, Doherty bandwidth through better matching and increased effectiveness of the digital pre-distortion (DPD) loop. The maximum tuning flexibility enables uniformity and repeatability between transceiver paths, while increasing system reliability. The monolithic controller can be programmed remotely through the digital interface to accommodate varying field requirements. This flexibility allows engineers to adjust the phase and amplitude in real-time for operational and environmental factors.
The RFHIC IEQ3656D and the IE36170WD are symmetrical Doherty GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) devices. The IEQ3656D has an operating frequency of 3.4 to 3.8 GHz, while the IE36170WD supports a frequency range from 3.52 to 3.56 GHz. Offered in a DFN package, the IEQ3656D delivers saturated output power (PSAT) of 56W at 48V operation. The IE36170WD provides PSAT of 170W at 48V operation.
Visit Peregrine Semiconductor’s IMS booth #2129 to see the demonstration.
ABOUT PEREGRINE SEMICONDUCTOR
Peregrine Semiconductor Corporation, a Murata company, is the founder of RF silicon on insulator (SOI) and is a leading fabless provider of high-performance, integrated RF solutions. Since 1988 Peregrine and its founding team have been perfecting UltraCMOS® technology—a patented, advanced form of SOI—to deliver the performance edge needed to solve the RF market’s biggest challenges, such as linearity. By delivering best-in-class performance and monolithic integration, Peregrine products are the trusted choice for market leaders in automotive, broadband, industrial, Internet of Things, mobile devices, smartphones, space, test-and-measurement equipment and wireless infrastructure. A Murata company since December 2014, Peregrine holds more than 240 filed and pending patents and has shipped over 3.5 billion UltraCMOS units. For more information, visit https://psemi.com.
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