Microsemi Releases First Series of SiC High Power Devices

A few years ago most of the HPA manufacturers were researching the next generation of high power devices on GaN and SiC. But is seems like most companies choose GaN for their next generation of devices and interest in SiC seemed to fade (except as a substrate material for GaN).

Over the past year, many companies have released new high power GaN devices and it seems to be taking off for many of the higher frequency applications and high voltage LDMOS seems to be doing the same for lower frequency applications. So I am excited to see Microsemi bringing SiC to the market with the release of a new family of high power devices and talked with them last week for a press briefing.

With a high operating voltage (125 V) and great thermal conductivity, these devices boost wider pulse widths, better reliability, and reduced size compared to the competing Si devices for next generation demands. They have typical power levels of 1400 W at 156 MHz and 1100 W at 405-450 MHz (300 micro sec pulse width, 10% duty cycle) plus can stand up to VSWR of 10:1 (which could be much higher after further testing) for these initial devices. Microsemi is first introducing these VHF and UHF devices followed by later releases of L-band and S-band devices. For more details, the release is available on our site. It should be interesting to follow how these devices evolve in the marketplace.

EB Releasing New Emulator Platform

As editors, we get to participate in company and product briefings quite often, so I thought I would start covering them here as interesting tidbits beyond the typical product or press releases. They get much more in depth than the news items so they can provide additional insights.

I talked with Elektrobit (now EB) last week about their new emulator platform, EB Propsim F8, and was very impressed with its capability to test all current and future cellular standards including real air interface conditions that the standards do not necessarily cover. It supports the current standards in place plus 3G/WiMAX/LTE/4G in one box, has the widest RF bandwidth up to 125 MHz with MIMO (up to 8x8), highest number of channels (2-8 physical and 4-32 logical), highest delay range (up to 1.5 sec), supports baseband interface and actual measured network radio propagation emulation. This product was recently announced the other day in conjunction with WiMAX World in Chicago.

As an ex-marketing communications person, I really like their newer branding as EB. The colors and style really work to present them as a modern, high tech company. They really seem to have the leading edge products for their markets.