Development of Gallium Nitride High Electron Mobility Transistors for Cellular Base Stations

摘要

High power and high efficiency devices are increasingly required for the 3rd generation and other future base station transmitter systems (BTSs). Gallium nitride (GaN) is ideal for these applications because of its wide band gap and high saturated electron velocity. We have developed the GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) grown on the silicon carbide (SiC) substrate and released the world's first commercial GaN HEMT products. We have also studied efficiency enhancement of the modern BTS amplifiers using Doherty and Class-E circuits. This paper summarizes the GaN HEMT development for the BTS amplifier applications and the efficiency enhancement techniques.