NXP Expands High-Performance Gen8 LDMOS Portfolio for Wireless Infrastructure

Covering all main cellular frequency bands between 700 to 2700 MHz, the latest version of NXP’s proven LDMOS process increases the efficiency of Doherty amplifiers by as much as three points and improves gain by as much as 1 dB.

NXP’s latest LDMOS RF power transistors offer up to 115 MHz of signal bandwidth to enable full-band operation for all cellular frequency bands, including GSM, W-CDMA and LTE, as well as unprecedented video bandwidth up to 300 MHz.

Designed for cost-sensitive applications, the new Gen8 LDMOS transistors offer P1dB powers up to 270 watts in SOT502-sized packages, and 400 watts in SOT539-sized packages. The breakthrough power density of NXP’s Gen8 LDMOS transistors helps to reduce the size and weight of Doherty amplifiers – and ultimately the base station cabinet - significantly. Combined together, these enhancements also reduce total expenditures related to cooling and operation. Engineering samples of 17 product types are now available. NXP will showcase its latest Gen8 LDMOS transistors at next week’s MTT-S International Microwave Symposium 2012 in Montreal, Canada (booth 607).

Developed in close collaboration with key customers, NXP’s Gen8 LDMOS enables best-in-class manufacturing yields for power amplifiers. The Gen8 transistors achieve excellent product consistency through a design that uses less sensitive matching topologies, and places resonance frequencies of the matching networks outside the band to limit the impact of manufacturing variations on performance. During manufacturing, the production line is calibrated on resonance frequency before the start of each batch. During testing, binning (gain and phase) is possible for sensitive Doherty designs, with several options available to increase correlation with the application, including Doherty testing for asymmetric transistors.

“After several months of development and testing, we are very pleased to release the newest members of our high-performance Gen8 LDMOS RF power transistor family. With optimized packaging, die design, and input and output match structures, NXP Gen8 is emerging as the platform of choice for multi-standard wideband Doherty power amplifiers that are highly compact, cost-effective and power-efficient,” said Christophe Cugge, director of marketing, base station power amplifiers, NXP Semiconductors. “Building on our 30-year heritage in RF power devices, NXP’s eighth-generation LDMOS RF transistor portfolio helps our customers resolve the often-conflicting demands of today’s advanced wireless infrastructure and base station technology, delivering better performance and higher efficiency at a much lower cost.”