RF Micro Devices Inc of Greensboro, NC, USA has launched the RFPA520x series of three-stage WiFi power amplifier (PA) modules, designed for 802.11b/g/n applications. Other applications include: consumer premise equipment (CPE); picocells and femtocells; data-cards and terminals; wireless access points, gateways, routers and set-top box applications; and industrial, scientific & medical (ISM)-band transmitter applications
Each module is a highly integrated solution with minimal external components, eliminating the need for any external matching components and greatly reducing layout area, bill of materials (BOM), and manufacturing costs for the customer application, says RFMD.
Fabricated with an indium gallium phosphide (InGaP) heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) process, the PAs have high linear output power (27dBm, 5V < 3% dynamic EVM, for the RFPA5200; and 29dBm, EVM = 3%, 11n MCS7 HT40 for the RFPA5201) while maintaining high power-added efficiency (PAE) of 21% for the RFPA5200 and 18.5% for the RFPA5201. Gain is 33dB for the RFPA5200 and 33.5dB for the RFPA5201. Both modules have input and output matched to 50Ω, and an integrated power detector, biasing, harmonic filtering, and enable pin.
The RFPA5200 is supplied in a 4mm x 4mm x 1mm, 10-pin laminate package and the RFPA5201 in a 14-pin, 7mm x 7mm multi-chip module (MCM).
Both parts are available now in production quantities. Pricing in 5000-unit quantities begins at $1.26 each for the RFPA5200 and $2.64 each for the RFPA5201.
