TriQuint Introduces New Compact Single-Chip Sat-Com PAs

(Product News, 5 Jun 2007)

TriQuint Semiconductor released two new satellite communications (sat-com) high power amplifiers (HPAs) that lead the industry in performance and overall size reduction. The new die-level products, TGA4916 and TGA4906, offer better performance in a smaller area, plus greater cost effectiveness for the design of sat-com ground terminal RF chipsets.

TriQuint's latest HPAs are utilized in products that deliver satellite-based Internet service, data transfer and video uploads/downloads. Typical home and business usages include data connectivity for ATMs, supermarkets/retail outlets, hotels, airlines, car rental agencies.

TriQuint's new products will debut at the 2007 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium in Honolulu, Hawaii (June 5-7). These high performance gallium arsenide (GaAs) MMICs (monolithic microwave integrated circuits) were developed as part of the company's continuing program to drive the evolution of VSAT (very small aperture terminal) components for ground station RF systems.

TriQuint's two new products address OEM needs for smaller, more highly integrated designs and will be offered as packaged devices later this year. Using such unique GaAs technologies as 0.15µm pHEMT (pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor) with three layers of interconnecting metal (3MI) on 50µm substrate material, TriQuint has reduced the overall chip size by 35 percent, placing more functionality in a smaller area. While die size has dramatically decreased, amplifier power density has increased by a factor of six over the product development lifetime. This enables the manufacturer to either reduce the overall size of a finished product, with corresponding cost savings, or to place more features into the same PC board area.

TriQuint's latest VSAT power amplifiers offer greater PAE (power added efficiency) compared to the previous generation.

TGA4916
TGA4906