IXYS Subsidiary Launches Family of High Linearity Power Amplifiers and Drivers for WiFi and WiMax Applications

MicroWave Technology Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of IXYS Corporation released a family of eight high linearity power amplifiers (PAs) for WiFi (802.11) and WiMax (802.16d/e) standards for all three frequency bands, 2.4-2.7 GHz, 3.3-3.7 GHz, and 4.9-5.9GHz.

The power amplifiers of the "WPS" series have an output power with 1 dB gain compression up to 36 dBm with IP3 as high as 50 dBm and EVM (error vector magnitude) less than 2% at 29dBm output power level under 64 quadrature amplification modulation schedule with 256 WiMax carriers. The typical gain across the bands is 14 dB. The power amplifiers have more than 100 years of mean-time-toward-failure (MTTF) at 150C junction temperature and are available in lead-free surface mount leadless 02 packages and flange packages.

MwT also offers MPS series products as high linearity drivers suitable for driving the WPS power amplifier series for the same WiFi and WiMax frequency bands. Those drivers have an output power with 1 dB gain compression of 29dBm with IP3 of 45 dBm and EVM of less than 2.5% at 22dBm output power level under WiMax modulation scheme. The typical gain across the bands is 13 dB.

In addition, MicroWave Technology recently released two field effect transistor (FET) products in the SOT89 (msall outline transistor) package, MwT-1789HL and MwT-1789NL, for generic linear power and low noise applications. Those packaged FETs deliver superior high dynamic range performance from 0.9 to 4.0 GHz.

"Utilizing our proprietary semiconductor device technologies, these new WiMax and WiFi PAs represent MwT power amplifier products with the best in class linearity performance," said Dr. Greg Zhou, general manager of Microwave Technology. "We continue to leverage our high linearity device technology and design capability to address the 802.11 WiFi and the emerging 802.16d/e WiMax base station applications. We have expanded our linear power amplifier products to offer our customers the best solutions for all three frequency bands with higher output power levels in compliance to the EVM specifications."