Mitsubishi Electric Corporation will start shipping samples of new Gallium Nitride (GaN) power amplifier modules for use in 5G massive MIMO (mMIMO) base stations on September 21, 2023. These power amplifier modules achieve a power-added efficiency of more than 43% over a wide frequency range of 400 MHz and help reduce the power consumption of 5G mMIMO base stations.
Providing high-speed, large-capacity communications, 5G mobile networks are becoming increasingly popular across the world, with their 5G mMIMO base stations installed predominantly in metropolitan areas. Since these base stations utilize multi-element antennas and a correspondingly high number of power amplifiers, highly efficient power amplifier modules play an important role in reducing the power consumption and manufacturing costs of these base stations. In addition, the power amplifier module needs to deliver 3GPP-compliant low distortion characteristics over a wide frequency range to be compatible with multiple countries' networks.
Key Product Features
- Higher power-added efficiency of more than 43% in the 400 MHz band reduces the power consumption of 5G mMIMO base stations. A GaN HEMT featuring an epitaxial growth layer structure4 provides high efficiency and low distortion characteristics even when used in 5G environments
- Mitsubishi Electric’s original high-density packaging technique allows the realization of a Doherty-circuit-based power amplifier module that is indispensable to 5G base station power amplifiers.
Mitsubishi Electric will start sample shipments of a GaN power amplifier module for 5G mMIMO base stations that can deliver an average output power of 8W (39 dBm) over wide frequencies ranging from 3.4 GHz to 3.8 GHz. In particular, the product is suitable for 64T64R mMIMO antennas 3 because of its more than 43% high power-added efficiency operation. The high efficiency and low distortion result from Mitsubishi Electric's new GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs). The wideband characteristics, in addition to the high efficiency, are realized using the company's original circuit design and high-density packaging techniques.
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