WIN Semiconductors yesterday announced the commercial release of a 50V 0.25µm-gate RF gallium nitride (GaN) platform, NP25-20, and targets high performance front-end applications including radio access networks, satellite communications, electronic warfare and radar systems. The NP25-20 technology supports full MMICs enabling WIN customers to design compact, linear or saturated high-power amplifiers, rugged low noise amplifiers and single chip front end solutions through 18GHz.
The NP25-20 gallium nitride technology employs a source-coupled field plate for improved breakdown voltage and operates at a drain bias of 50 volts. This technology is fabricated on 100mm silicon carbide substrates with through-wafer vias for low inductance grounding. At X-band, NP25-20 demonstrates excellent transmit and receive performance with saturated output power of 10 watts/mm,18 dB linear gain and 60% power added efficiency. When biased for noise performance at 10GHz, NP25-20 provides minimum noise figure of 0.8dB with 12dB associated gain. The combination of power density and superb noise figure from NP25-20 enables high-performance single chip front ends without sacrificing transmit power or receiver sensitivity.
David Danzilio, Senior Vice President of WIN Semiconductors Corp
The performance versatility of NP25-20 is unique for RF gallium nitride technology. A GaN MMIC platform with 10 watts/mm output power alone is an achievement. Combining surprising noise performance with high power switching in the same device creates a new toolset for customers to commercialize market leading products for a wide range of applications
