Avago Technologies Develops Complete RF Front-End Solution for Point-to-Point Radio Markets

“Our 38 GHz and 42 GHz point-to-point radio solution has four primary chips and a wafer level packaged directional power detector,” said Allen Chien, Multimarket Marketing Manager of Avago Technologies. “Our innovative chipset will help cellular operators increase their backhaul capacity to meet the demands of mobile data users.”

Point-to-Point Wireless Markets

The wireless infrastructure market is expanding to meet the increasing data rate and reliable connection demands of cellular customers. Smart phones and other devices require high bandwidth data that must be provided by backhaul solutions. Point-to-point backbone radios carry the high capacity traffic from fiber Points-of-Presence (POPs) to wireless access points.

In areas of the world, 38 GHz (37-40GHz) and 42 GHz (40.5-43.5 GHz) are licensed wireless infrastructure bands. As new point-to-point radios are designed and installed to increase capacity, many radio manufactures are switching to SMT packages and away from traditional chip-and-wire devices. With SMT technology, radio suppliers can offer lower cost, more compact radios to the market and with shorter design cycles.

Process Technology and Manufacturing Capacity

The chipset is fabricated using Avago’s proprietary 0.17 µm gate Pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor (PHEMT) process. With 80 GHz FT transistors, this process is more than capable of meeting 40 GHz applications needs. Manufactured in Avago’s high yield, high volume, 6-inch wafer processing facility the chips are packaged in 5 x 5 mm SMT packages with shipment to be in tape and reel. The manufacturing and test operation is fully automated and capable of supplying millions of chipsets per month.

Key Features

- Four 5 x 5 mm SMT chips cover the 38 GHz and 42 GHz bands: Up-converter, down-converter, power amplifier, and multiplier

- High directivity power detector in 0402 Wafer Scale Package (WSP)

- Up-converter with variable gain amplifier (VGA) for 24 dB gain control

- 20 dB Power amplifier with 1 W output

o High linearity with a 36 dBm OIP3 (third-order intercept)

- Integrated buffer and multiplier

- Low noise Receiver/Down-converter: Noise figure under 4.5 dB