Wolfspeed powers up 50-V GaN HEMT family with 3.0-GHz 250-W device

Wolfspeed, a global supplier of GaN-on-SiC high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) and monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), has extended its family of 50-V unmatched GaN HEMT RF power devices by adding a 250-W part with a frequency range up to 3.0 GHz. The company says the device offers the highest efficiency of any comparably-rated GaN device available, enabling RF design engineers to use fewer components to design smaller and lighter linear amplifier circuits for commercial and military wireless communications and S-band radar applications.

The new 50-V GaN HEMT devices provide a combination of high power and high gain with high efficiency operation, making it possible for RF design engineers to replace several lower-power GaN HEMTs or multiple silicon LDMOS devices with a single device in their power-amplifier designs. Packaged in a four-leaded metal-flanged ceramic “Gemini” package, the new 250-W GaN HEMTs operate efficiently at full rated power, reducing the need for complex thermal management systems.

Their higher power and efficiency rating, combined with a frequency range up to 3.0 GHz, makes these devices suitable for a range of RF linear and compressed amplifier circuits, including those for military communications systems, radar equipment (UHF, L-, and S-band), and electronic warfare (EW) systems, as well as RF applications in the industrial, medical, and scientific (ISM) band.

“The addition of these new 250-W GaN HEMT devices to our 50-V product line enables Wolfspeed to deliver new levels of power and efficiency to our RF customers,” said Jim Milligan, RF and microwave director, Wolfspeed. “Now, RF engineers can simplify their power-amplifier designs by replacing multiple power devices with a single part, reducing their component count and making their amplifiers smaller and lighter.”

The CGHV40200PP is a 50-V unmatched GaN HEMT device rated for 250-W, 3.0-GHz operation with 67% efficiency (at P_SAT) and 21-dB small-signal gain at 1.8 GHz.

Wolfspeed says that Compared to conventional silicon (Si) and gallium arsenide (GaAs) devices, Wolfspeed’s GaN-on-SiC RF devices deliver higher breakdown voltage, higher temperature operation, higher efficiency, higher thermal conductivity, higher power density, and wider bandwidths, all of which are critical for achieving smaller, lighter, and more efficient microwave and RF products. Wolfspeed GaN-on-SiC RF devices enable next-generation broadband, public safety, and ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical) amplifiers; broadcast, satellite, and tactical communications amplifiers; UAV data links; test instrumentation; and two-way private radios.

The CGHV40200PP GaN HEMTs are now in volume production and are available immediately from Wolfspeed distributors Digi-Key and Mouser. Wolfspeed RF devices are supported by proprietary Large Signal Models, available for customers at portal.cree.com. For more information about the newly released CGHV40200PP devices, visit http://www.wolfspeed.com/cghv40200pp.