S-band Radar LDMOS Transistors
- Author:
S.J.C.H. Theeuwen and H. Molle
More than ten years ago LDMOS transistors were introduced as a replacement of bipolar transistors for RF power applications. Nowadays LDMOS technology is the leading RF power technology for base station applications, in particular for GSM-EDGE and W-CDMA applications at 1 and 2 GHz, and more recently for WiMax applications around 2.7GHz and 3.8 GHz.One of the last niche application areas in which bipolar devices were used was the 3-4 GHz microwave area, such as S-band radar. Main reason for this was that earlier generations of LDMOS showed similar performance at 3 GHz compared to bipolar, not justifying redesign of complex radar systems.
The main driver for LDMOS is a high volume application, which \enables continuous improvement of the LDMOS technology and this has resulted in the latest generation LDMOS, which outperforms bipolar at S-band frequencies with some additional advantages such as ruggedness and better thermal behaviour. In this article an overview is given of the LDMOS improvements at 3-4 GHz and the LDMOS performance for microwave products is presented.
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