High Voltage
Microwave Devices: An Overview
D. Miller and M.
Drinkwine
M/A-COM, Inc.
Microwave Solutions Business Unit
Phone: 540 563-8600,
E-mail: millerd@tycoelectronics.com
Abstract
Emerging technologies like
SiC and GaN offer the potential for manufacturable high performance microwave
power devices operating at higher voltages than traditional GaAs-based devices.
Developers of these new high-voltage-device technologies are targeting applications
like cell phone base-station amplifiers, SAT-COM power amplifiers, and high
power phased-array radar systems where very high power is desirable and higher
supply voltages are readily available. After defining appropriate figures of
merit (FOMs) that are useful for comparing different high voltage transistor
technologies, we present a summary of the competing technologies and
fabrication technology overviews. We compare performance and “in production”
cost with traditional GaAs-based and silicon-based technologies. Examples of
recently-published results are presented, including recent work representing
higher-voltage GaAs-based technologies.