May 27, 2015, Seoul, Korea – Freescale Semiconductor (www.freescale.co.kr, Representative Director Yeonho Hwang) announced its first GaN RF power transistor for cellular base stations. The new A2G22S160-01S provides excellent performance among 30W and 40W amplifiers for wireless infrastructure applications and is the first product in the Airfast GaN transistor portfolio for cellular, which is planned to form a broad portfolio.

Freescale, a leader in the RF power transistor market, has added GaN RF solutions to provide customers with an extensive portfolio of world-class products in the wireless infrastructure market. This announcement comes just months after the release of the MMRF5014H, Freescale's first military and industrial GaN RF power transistor, which delivers industry-leading thermal efficiency and broadband RF performance in a 100W-class GaN transistor.

"Paul Hart, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Freescale's RF Business Unit, stated, 'Freescale is driving the transition of the GaN market from niche markets to mainstream applications such as cellular infrastructure.' Now is the right time to provide GaN solutions to Freescale's extremely broad range of existing telecommunications customers. Cellular market customers can leverage the exceptional performance of the A2G22S160-01S while benefiting from Freescale's mass production capabilities and global customer support."

Since GaN offers higher power conversion efficiency, faster switching speeds, and higher power density than silicon, it is possible to create power transistors that are much smaller in size yet outperform the performance of existing devices. This is possible because GaN offers wide band gaps, high critical electric fields, and electron mobility characteristics. While the cost of GaN migration was previously prohibitive, recent commercial and technological advancements are lowering manufacturing costs. Freescale, a long-standing leader in semiconductor manufacturing, is showcasing the advantages of GaN in the world's largest major markets and enabling the large-scale launch of new GaN power amplifiers in the mainstream commercial base station market.

The Freescale Airfast RF power family covers the entire wireless cellular band range from 600 MHz to 3.8 GHz with various semiconductor technology options. The A2G22S160-01S delivers state-of-the-art performance in the frequency range between 1800 MHz and 2200 MHz. For example, a 40W Doherty bidirectional asymmetric amplifier using one A2G22S160-01S in the carrier path and two in the peaking path has a maximum output of 56.2 dBm. At an output back-off (OBO) of 8 dB, the gain is 15.4 dB and the efficiency is 56.7%. When driven by two 20 MHz LTE carriers with a total carrier bandwidth of 40 MHz, the adjacent channel power (ACP) is -55 dBc, including digital pre-distortion (DPD).

Supply situation

The A2G22S160-01S GaN RF power transistor is currently in mass production, and reference designs and other supporting solutions are also available. For pricing or additional information, please contact the Freescale website (www.freescale.com), Freescale Korea (02-3440-7200), or an official distributor.