High Performance RF Products

RF power amplifiers for Aerospace and Defense

NXP's broad selection of RF power amplifiers covers L-band, S-band, and avionics applications, meeting the very high demands of today's most advanced equipment. Our industry leading 6th generation high voltage LDMOS technology delivers equivalent power densities of bipolar combined with all the benefits of LDMOS. Next to LDMOS, available GaN technology enables even higher power densities with devices running at higher frequencies and offer a larger bandwidth.

New high performance designs in L- and S-band radar applications are moving away from bipolar technologies using toxic beryllium oxide (BeO). Supporting this trend NXP combines the latest LDMOS technology with leading-edge packaging solutions, creating amplifiers and pallets that deliver superior quality, performance, and reliability.

Key benefits

• Non-toxic packaging & ROHS compliance
• Superior ruggedness - overdrive without risk up to 5 dB
• No thermal runaway
• Higher gain and efficiency than bipolar
• Large flexibility with respect to used pulse formats
• less pulse droop and stable insertion phase
• Very easy to design with
• Very consistent device performance
• no further tuning required during manufacturing

Key downloads

• Packages for RF power transistors 2011

Power amplifiers for Basestations

NXP offers complete line-ups of RF power amplifiers for basestations operating from 700 MHz right up to 3.8 GHz, covering all cellular technologies (GSM/EDGE, TDMA, CDMA, TD-SCDMA, W-CDMA/LTE/UMTS) and WiMAX infrastructures.

Our sixth and seventh-generation LDMOS process technologies provide enhanced RF performance with excellent pre-distortion capability, ruggedness and power gain. Together with NXP's power amplifier design expertise, LDMOS technology also enables today's highest levels of system efficiency, requiring less energy to power the network infrastructure. That lets network operators deliver next-generation cellular services and connectivity to consumers for less operational expenditure.

For example, break the real 250 W device barrier at 2.2 GHz and take a step up in efficiency with your next basestation designs. That's just two of the targets NXP's new 7th generation LDMOS technology will help to achieve, as well as delivering record performance up to 3.8 GHz.

Key product demonstrators

• Doherty design demonstrators for entire frequency range between 700 and 3.8 GHz
• Advanced 2- and patented 3-way Doherty amplifier designs for highest efficiency levels to date
• 600 W, 2-way Doherty in a single transistor package running at 50 V supply voltage
• Industry firsts:
• 3.8 GHz Doherty
• 3-way Doherty at 900 MHz
• Fully integrated Doherty's (BLD6G21LS-50 & BLD6G22LS-50)

Key benefits

• Highest efficiency
• Excellent ruggedness
• Very high power single-ended and push pull devices

Key downloads

• Packages for RF power transistors 2011

Power amplifiers for Broadcast / ISM

NXP's leading LDMOS technologies together with advanced package concepts enable best-in-class power amplifiers. Our portfolio includes amplifiers for UHF, VHF and HF applications as well as covering ISM frequency bands.

Ruggedness, or the ability to withstand a mismatch condition without failure, is one of the most important reliability parameters for RF power amplifiers - particularly so for broadcast and ISM applications. NXP has been leading the way in ruggedness since we introduced our first LDMOS amplifiers nearly a decade ago and some of our 6th generation LDMOS have been proven to be virtually indestructible.

We offer the industry's highest power and outstanding, field-proven ruggedness for all broadcast technologies. By providing the ultimate DVB-T transistor line-up (BLF88x family) with the highest power, best full-band efficiency and industry leading support, NXP makes it easy to broadcast DVB-T signals while reducing overall costs. Optimized for digital broadcast signals, this line-up (BLF88x) fully complements NXP's analog broadcast portfolio (BLF87x).

Next to these dedicated broadcast families, NXP also offers a general purpose (i.e. industrial, scientific and medical use), unmatched transistor family (BLF57x), which excels by achieving power levels of up to 1200 W and unsurpassed ruggedness to run with the most 'awkward' RF loads.

Key benefits

• Highest power
• Excellent, field-proven ruggedness
• Best broadband performance
• Best-in-class design support
• Very-low thermal resistance design for unrivalled reliability
• Very consistent device performance

Key downloads

• Packages for RF power transistors 2011

High speed data converters with SerDes interface

Helping to simplify your design, reduce board space and cost, and improve conversion performance, synchronized serial data interfaces are the key enabler for today’s demanding data acquisition applications. Our latest high speed data converters with JESD204B compliant
SerDes-based digital interfaces deliver these important system design benefits.

NXP’s JESD204B solutions are fully compliant with the JEDEC standard, and offer several additional benefits for enhanced performance and ease-of-use. The devices, such as the DAC1628D and ADC1443D, include our CGVxpress feature set. This includes Multiple Device Synchronization (MDS), enabling LTE MIMO radio base station transceiver designs and other advanced multi-channel applications. Our MDS feature allows up to sixteen ADC and DAC data streams to be sample synchronized and phase coherent. JESD204B compliant converters also include three major feature enhancements: harmonic clocking support, deterministic and repeatable latency through the interface, and higher data lane bandwidth.

Complementing NXP’s existing JESD204A CGV product portfolio are our new JESD204B CGVxpress family members. These devices all implement an enhanced superset of the JEDEC standards, including MDS.

Key benefits

• Growing family of dual-channel 16-bit resolution DACs and 14-bit ADCs with SerDes-based digital interfaces
• Enhanced feature (multiple device synchronization) – enables up to sixteen DAC data streams to be sample-synchronized and phase-coherent
• JESD204B Device Subclass 0, 1 and 2 compliant: SYSCLK-based and SYNC-based deterministic latency protocol support
• Harmonic clocking support to simplify system-level clock synthesis and distribution
• Assured FPGA interoperability – Altera, Lattice and Xilinx SerDes-based programmable logic devices
• Industrial temperature range from -40°C to +85°C
• Small outline HLQFN and HVQFN packaging

Low noise amplifiers

RF set makers often include an external LNA to boost very weak signals. This also allows manufacturers to increase design flexibility by placing the antenna away from the processor chipset, which is especially important when working with multiple antenna. For example, having the GPS antenna close to the cellular antenna can result in noise from the cellular antenna affecting the GPS RF front-end and therefore GPS accuracy.

When integrating an external LNA into their designs, set makers can choose between module and discrete solutions. NXP's high-performance RF portfolio includes both our dedicated LNAs and our wideband amplifiers family. The proven SiGe:C QUBiC4Xi process improves overall RF performance. Delivering very low noise figures and excellent linear performance, the result is less expensive and more flexible LNAs then their GaAs counterparts.

GPS LNAs
Today's mobile platforms are increasing in complexity and offering ever more features as standard. One feature that is rapidly become a standard option is GPS functionality, opening up a host of location-based services. And the possibilities are endless - digital cameras that know where the picture was taken, watches that automatically change time zones, as well as the more traditional mapping and guidance options.

Of course to do that you need GPS modules that fit into extremely small spaces. It's also vital to ensure the RF front-end and GPS chipset receive the faint GPS signal coming from satellites with as little noise as possible. An external LNA and in particular one of NXP's dedicated GPS LNAs can be integrated either as a discrete solution or part of a complete module.

Key benefits

• Extremely small GPS LNAs
• Shortest time-to-first-fix
• Very low power requirements

LO generators for microwave applications

NXP offers two families of low-noise local-oscillator (LO) generators. Optimized for use in many different microwave applications between 7 and 15 GHz they deliver highly accurate performance in a small footprint.

The TFF100xHN family is optimized for VSAT applications while the TFF11xxxHN are for microwave radio. They require no alignment or frequency modification on the production line, so they simplify manufacturing. High integration saves board space and makes design-in easier, for lower overall cost and faster development, enabling quick time-to-market.

In typical Point-to-Point / Multi-point radio set-ups, and in applications such as car radar, having the right local-oscillator (LO) generator can make a significant difference in performance. Fabricated in NXP's QUBiC4X SiGe:C process, our family of low-noise LO generators offer better overall RF performance, are more robust than their GaAs equivalents, and consume much less power. PLL-based they also deliver the best spurious performance and enable DRO free applications for the lowest phase noise.

Key benefits

• DRO free (dielectric resonator oscillator free - (PLL phased locked loop) retains more stable frequency and lowest noise in market)
• Lowest total cost of ownership
• Best spurious performance (improves signal quality)
• Fastest time to market (easy to design in)
• Lowest phase noise from 7 to 15 GHz

Broadband medium power amplifier MMICs

Silicon-based medium power amplifier MMICs rival their GaAs counterparts products on linearity performance (better / constant signal formation over power, so less distortion). Higher integration levels also help save cost and space (e.g. integrated gain control). And features such as a built-in thermally compensated bias circuit assure stable system level performance, while integrated shut down/enable circuitry simplifies and cuts down the cost of the system implementation.

NXP's growing medium power MMIC family is ideal for all wireless communication applications. Tunable between class A and AB, and supporting power line network operation, they can work from either mains or battery power. This makes them ideal for all e-metering solutions including gas meters, where a power connection can be problematic. They can also save implementation costs as they offer single supply operation with integrated features such as built-in temperature compensated bias and enable/shut down circuit.

The BGA7124 sets a new benchmark in performance for silicon-based amplifiers. Operating from 400 MHz to 2700 MHz, it delivers 24 dBm of power with 17 dB of gain at 2.0 GHz in a single stage. The device provides excellent linearity with an OIP3 of 37 dBm. Taking full advantage of the silicon integration, it incorporates active biasing, quiescent current adjustment, fast shut-down and ESD protection on all pins - all in a package just 3 mm x 3 mm.

Key benefits

• Using BiCMOS technology instead of GaAs
• GaAs HBT performance at Si prices
• Improved thermal performance - low thermal resistance, junction to case
• Facilitates integration of additional features
• Integrated active biasing
• Simple quiescent current adjustment
• Shutdown mode (fast shutdown)
• ESD protection at all pins
• Wideband, 400 MHz to 2700 MHz
• Offering 3.3 V / 5 V single-supply operation
• Offering smallest package size leadless SOT908 (3 x 3 mm) and leaded pin compatible SOT89
• Shut down mode (saving energy)