Has GaN Pushed LDMOS into Irrelevance?

摘要

Back in July 2015, I wrote a column titled "GaN Taking Control" that discussed the increasing utilization of gallium-nitride (GaN) technology. Today, no one can question the impact that GaN technology has had on the RF/microwave industry. But with GaN receiving so much attention, where does this leave laterally diffused metal-oxide semiconductor-LDMOS-technology? Has LDMOS been completely pushed aside?LDMOS technology has dominated the wireless infrastructure arena, but is that changing? The answer to that question is yes-at least, according to a recent article titled, "Realizing 5G Sub-6-GHz Massive MIMO Using GaN." The authors, Qorvo's David Schnaufer and Bror Peterson, point out that "high output power, linearity, and power-consumption requirements are pushing base-station and network original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to switch from using LDMOS technology for power amplifiers (PAs) to gallium nitride (GaN)."