Nitronex Corp., a developer and manufacturer of high-performance RF power transistors for the wireless infrastructure market, has introduced a family of RF power transistors, based on its unique SIGANTIC (GaN on silicon) technology for the WiMAX market. The products' ability to simultaneously deliver high-frequency, high-power and broad bandwidth provides better performance than alternative technologies to current and future WiMAX infrastructure designers.

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The family of WiMAX power transistors will initially consist of 10-W and 50-W devices supporting both the 2.5-GHz and 3.5-GHz segments of the WiMAX market. Target customers are OEMS developing RF power amplifiers for fixed and mobile WiMAX infrastructure. The devices are designed to support broadband operation in these segments (2.3 GHz to 2.7 GHz and 3.3 GHz to 3.8 GHz) to allow greater design re-use and flexibility for OEMS. Devices for the 5.8-GHz segment of the WiMAX market are planned for introduction in 2006.

The NPT35050 (3.5 GHz, 50 W) is the first device in this product line to be released. It is designed for WiMAX power amplifier output stages. GaN's higher power density enables the design of packaged devices with higher input and output impedances (20 Ω), eliminating the need for output matching, and making the device very easy for power amplifier developers to use. Using a typical single carrier OFDM (802.16d) waveform, the performance at Vds of 28 V and Idq of 1000 mA is 5 W of average output power with an EVM of 2%, efficiency of 18% and gain of 10 dB.

Sample kits for the NPT35050 are available for $950, and include two devices and an application board.