News: Microelectronics
18 March 2025
Mitsubishi Electric to ship samples of 3.6–4.0GHz, 16W GaN power amplifier module for 5G mMIMO base stations in North America and East and Southeast Asia
On 25 March, Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Electric Corp will begin shipping samples of a new 16W-average-power gallium nitride (GaN) power amplifier module (PAM) for 5G massive MIMO (mMIMO) base stations. Operating in the 3.6–4.0GHz band, it can be widely deployed in North America and East and Southeast Asia. As 5G networks expand from urban centers to regional areas, mMIMO base stations, especially 32T32R mMIMO base stations (consisting of 32 transmitters and receivers), are expected to be increasingly deployed. Mitsubishi Electric says that its 16W GaN PAM is particularly suited to 32T32R mMIMO base stations because it reduces both production costs and power consumption.
Since mMIMO base stations use multi-element antennas and many power amplifiers, there is a growing need for highly efficient power amplifiers to help to reduce base-station production costs and power consumption. In particular, PAMs strongly contribute to lower production costs because they are easy to mount on a printed-circuit board, unlike discrete power amplifiers that need many on-board components. While power amplifiers are required to deliver low-distortion characteristics compliant with 5G signal quality, they must also support different frequency bands in various countries and additionally must achieve increasingly higher output power to support longer communication distances as 5G networks expand from urban areas to surrounding cities.
Mitsubishi Electric’s existing 8W and 16W GaN PAMs, which support the 3.3–3.8GHz band, are widely used in Europe and South and West Asia. The newly developed 16W GaN PAM, which supports the 3.6–4.0GHz band widely used in North America and both East and Southeast Asia, is mainly suitable for 32T32R mMIMO base stations, which are expected to be increasingly deployed as 5G networks expand from urban areas into surrounding cities. A 32T32R mMIMO base station equipped with the new 16W PAM can achieve nearly the same communication distances as a 64T64R mMIMO base station (consisting of 64 transmitters and receivers) equipped with an 8W PAM, and also half the number of PAMs required in a 32T32R mMIMO base station, reducing the production costs of mMIMO base stations used in many countries. In addition, the PAM uses Mitsubishi Electric’s proprietary GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) and circuit design technology to achieve low distortion characteristics and high power-added efficiency (PAE) of 41% in a wide frequency range of 3.6–4.0GHz (400MHz band) to reduce power consumption in 5G mMIMO base stations.
Mitsubishi Electric sampling 16W GaN power amplifier module for 5G massive MIMO base stations
Mitsubishi Electric to ship samples of GaN power amplifier module for 5G mMIMO base stations
