News

27 May 2010

 

Avago develops next generation LNAs for cellular and LTE base stations

Avago Technologies, which designs and supplies analog semiconductor devices (with a focus on III-V based products), has developed two next generation, low noise amplifiers (LNAs) for base station (BTS) RF front-end design. Avago says that the addition of these 1500 MHz to 2300 MHz and 2300 MHz to 4000 MHz LNAs completes its next generation LNA series, covering all cellular bands for GSM, CDMA, UMTS, and WiMAX, as well as next generation LTE bands.

The new LNAs target cellular infrastructure BTS applications, such as transceiver radio cards, tower mounted amplifiers (TMAs), combiners, repeaters and remote/digital radio heads.

At 1900 MHz and a typical operating condition of 5 V/51 mA, Avago’s proprietary GaAs Enhancement-mode pHEMT process technology gives a best in class noise figure (NF) of 0.48 dB and an OIP3 of 35 dBm. At 2500 MHz and a typical operating condition of 5 V/56 mA, the noise figure is 0.59 dB and OIP3 is 35 dBm. With a low NF and high OIP3, the new LNAs offer more design margin for the BTS receiver path than previous amplifiers, says the firm.

With built-in active bias circuitry, Avago’s LNA operating current is adjustable, allowing designers to make tradeoffs between operating current and output linearity, as measured by OIP3, while maintaining an optimum NF. This offers BTS designers the flexibility to meet design needs and regional requirements with the same Avago LNA.

Avago chose a QFN package with a 4mm2 footprint to meet market needs. The two new LNAs share the same package footprint, pinout and external matching network of the existing Avago 900 MHz, MGA-633P8 LNA. A common PCB design can therefore be used for all BTS RF front-end designs that operate in different frequency bands. This reduces the number of PCB designs needed to supply BTS solutions for different bands and geographic markets, says Avago.

Key features:

1500 MHz to 2300 MHz operation

• Best in class NF: 0.48 dB @ 1900 MHz
• 35 dBm OIP3
• 17.8 dB gain
• 21 dBm P1dB @ 1900 MHz

2300 MHz to 4000 MHz operation

• Low NF: 0.59 dB @ 2500 MHz
• 35 dBm OIP3
• 17.5 dB gain
• 22 dBm P1dB @ 2500 MHz

Single 5 V power supply and low power operation

• 51 mA typical (1500 ­ 2300 MHz)
• 56 mA typical (2300 ­ 4000 MHz)

Common footprint and matching network across devices

• Simplifies PCB design and engineering

Proprietary process: 0.25-micron, GaAs Enhancement-mode pHEMT

The two new LNAs will be available from Q2/2010, and are offered in 2.0 x 2.0 x 0.85 mm, 8-lead, surface mount QFN packages that are RoHS compliant. All devices operate over a temperature range of -40°C to +85°C.

See related item:

Avago introduces MGA-633P8 GaAs MMIC LNA

Search: Avago LNAs Base stations

Visit: www.avagotech.com