News

At this week’s IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS 2007) in Honolulu, Hawaii, Cree Inc of Durham, NC, USA has announced sample availability of three new gallium nitride HEMT devices designed for WiMAX applications.

The CGH27120, CGH27060 and CGH27030 offer linear power up to 16W under orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation in small-footprint packages.

“Our GaN HEMT WiMAX devices, used in conjunction with our patented amplifier reference designs, offer a foundation for new levels of system efficiency,” claims Jim Milligan, business area manager for RF products. “The combination can enable new system architectures, such as remote radio heads and distributed base stations, either of which can significantly reduce mobile network capital and operational costs,” he adds.

At IMS 2007, Cree is also demonstrating an amplifier using its GaN HEMT transistors to produce more than 30W of average power with greater than 45% drain efficiency at 2.3-2.7GHz. This represents a 125% increase in efficiency over other commonly available amplifier solutions, the firm claims. Also, the amplifier meets error vector measurement (EVM) and spectral mask requirements for mobile infrastructure requirements, such as WiBro, WiMAX and 3G LTE.

This latest announcement follow’s Cree’s similar announcement yesterday at IMS 2007 of sample availability of the CGH40025 , a new 25W addition to its general-purpose high-power GaN HEMT product line.

*AWR offers Cree GaN MMIC process design kit for its Microwave Office design suite

Also at IMS 2007, Applied Wave Research Inc (AWR) of El Segundo, CA, USA, which supplies high-frequency electronic design automation (EDA) products, announced the availability of a process design kit (PDK) that enables monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) designers to use Cree’s high-power GaN MMIC process within its Microwave Office software environment. Designers can now improve productivity by applying AWR’s open and integrated design platform to Cree’s wide bandgap (WBG) GaN MMIC foundry services and discrete products, Cree says.

“The release of this kit is an important adjunct to the silicon carbide (SiC) PDK [launched at last June’s IMS 2006],” says Milligan. “Our customers will now be free to optimally match the unique attributes of both our GaN and SiC foundry processes to their specific application needs,” he adds. Wide-bandgap technologies are rapidly being adopted for next-generation commercial and military applications as they enable higher efficiency and greater operating bandwidth than other available device technologies, Cree says.

“The open Microwave Office 2007 design platform integrated with this Cree PDK can be of great benefit to our mutual customers and to the high-frequency design community as a whole,” reckons AWR’s CEO Dane Collins.

*AWR’s Microwave Office and VSS versions 2007 boost RF/microwave design productivity

Last week AWR launched the 2007 versions of its flagship high-frequency Microwave Office design suite and Visual System Simulator (VSS) software, which provide new capabilities that help designers deliver next-generation communications products in a shorter design cycle time. A controlled customer release or beta version is available now for select customers with support contracts, prior to general availability in Q3/2007.

The new technologies are the result of migrating the benefits of digital/analog circuit extraction technology into useful software for high-frequency design, says CEO Dane Collins.

New in Microwave Office is ACE, automated circuit extraction technology which cuts the time for initial modeling of complex interconnects in next-generation communications products from hours to seconds, since users can leverage layout-based models. Quick and accurate interconnect modeling at the earliest stages of the design flow enables problems to be identified and corrected without costly and time-consuming redesigns. Also, expanded Intelligent Net (iNet) technology now includes MMIC, module, and PCB design capability.

VSS 2007 now includes RFA, a system-level RF architectural planning and specification tool for communication system engineers who need to quickly create and verify the initial specifications of a radio design before committing to hardware and/or a particular circuit design. The new RF Inspector simulation tool helps to find potential pitfalls early in the design process, at the system-level design phase, thus saving design cycle time and costly re-spins, claims AWR.

VSS now also includes a WiMAX mobile library (fully compliant with IEEE 802.16e-2005 specifications) and a WiMAX fixed library (802.16d-2004).

See related items:

Nitronex launches 100W GaN-on-Si HEMT power transistor for WiMAX

Cree samples GaN HEMTs that boost WiMAX PA efficiency by up to 50%

KDDI and Fujitsu develop practical GaN HEMT-based high-efficiency amplifier for mobile WiMAX

Cree's GaN HEMT WiMAX devices used for airborne broadcasting

Visit Cree: http://www.cree.com

Visit AWR: http://www.appwave.com