TWTAs Still Dominate High-Power and mmWave Applications

摘要

There has been a long-standing argument that microwave and mmWave vacuum electron devices (VED)-known as traveling wave tubes (TWT), TWT amplifiers (TWTA) or microwave tubes (MWT)-are an obsolete technology almost completely superseded by solid-state power amplifiers (SSPA). Throughout the larger electronics industry, tube transistors have, for the most part, been replaced by solid-state transistors. However, within the microwave and mmWave industries, the extremely high-power capability at higher frequencies, relatively compact size and steadily increasing reliability of VEDs has maintained a nearly $1 billion market despite the opinion that VEDs are large, cumbersome, complex, expensive and unreliable solutions.