Satellite Communications Sees Advances in FETs, Power Amplifier Modules, Satellite Antenna Feeds and a Single Chip Tuner for Free-to-Air Satellite DTV Receivers

摘要

Toshiba Corporation has announced development of a gallium nitride (GaN) power field effect transistor (FET) that far surpasses the operating performance of the gallium arsenide (GaAs) FET widely used in base stations for terrestrial and satellite microwave communications. The new transistor achieves output power of 174W at 6GHz, the highest level of performance yet reported at this frequency. The company realized this breakthrough performance enhancement by optimizing the epitaxial layer and chip structures for 6GHz-band operation and by adopting a four-chip combination structure to minimize heat buildup. The result is a GaN power FET with eight times the power density of a GaAs FET and an output power at the 6GHz frequency level that calims to be the highest available.