Guerrilla RF (GRF) announced that it has created alternative tuning options to dramatically extend the frequency capabilities of its mid-band ¼ W power amplifiers (PAs). These frequency extensions allow radio designs to cover multiple cellular bands with a single transmit or receive line-up, reducing cost and size in the process.
After researching alternative tuning options, GRF’s applications team created enhanced matching solutions for the GRF5517, GRF5518 and GRF5519 PAs. A single match with the GRF5517 can now extend from 1710 MHz to 1920 MHz, covering 9 cellular uplink bands in the process. Total band coverage has been expanded to 210 MHz, doubling the original rating of 1700 MHz to 1800 MHz. Total fractional bandwidth of the newly enhanced tune is now at 12%.
Similarly, the tune for the GRF5518 now stretches from 1800 MHz to 2000 MHz, covering five uplink bands and three downlink bands with a single match. With a newly rated bandwidth of 200 MHz, this device delivers a fractional bandwidth of 11%.
GRF’s third mid-band PA, the GRF5519, offers the widest coverage, improving its bandwidth by 3.5x to 280 MHz while covering four uplink and eight downlink bands over the 1920 MHz to 2200 MHz spectrum. The fractional bandwidth for this wideband tune is 14%.
In each case, the power amplifiers are still able to deliver 23.5 dBm of linear output power across the entire band while meeting the 3GPP’s stringent -45 dBc ACLR requirement over a temperature range of -40°C to 85°C.
These band extensions are vital for manufacturers of cellular repeaters/boosters, DAS equipment, and automotive cellular compensators. Each of these systems must cover multiple cellular bands, and limited frequency coverage of the radio frequency (RF) components necessitates the implementation of multiple radio paths. By extending the bandwidth capabilities of the PA, these manufacturers can now reduce the number of separate radio paths by half.
