MaxLinear and RFHIC today announced a collaboration to deliver a production-ready 400MHz Power Amplifier (PA) solution for 5G Macrocell radios, using MaxLinear MaxLIN™ Digital Predistortion (DPD) and Crest Factor Reduction (CFR) technologies to optimize the performance of RFHIC’s latest ID-400W series GaN RF Transistors.

Combining RFHIC’s state-of-the-art dual-reverse GaN RF transistor ID41411DR with MaxLIN DPD and making it available as a pre-verified solution will allow Radio Access Network (RAN) product developers to rapidly deliver ultra-wideband 400MHz Macro PAs for all global 5G mid-band deployments with low emissions and high power efficiency.

“As 5G deployments continue to grow worldwide, network providers need to scale their coverage in a fast and cost-efficient manner,” said Samuel Cho, Founder and CTO of RFHIC. “We can deliver COTS and customizable solutions in a fraction of the time due to our one-stop GaN solution process. This process allows our customers to design and build their products more efficiently and get to market faster.”

“Mobile operators need new disruptive 5G radio innovations that can dramatically reduce power consumption, tower space, and cost while simultaneously delivering much higher capacity,” said Brendan Walsh, MaxLinear’s Vice President, Wireless Infrastructure. “The new ultra-wideband radios enabled by MaxLIN with RFHIC RF transistors deliver on this challenge by allowing multiple new 5G radio bands to be supported efficiently in a single Radio Unit (RU).”

More about RFHIC’s RF Transistors

RFHIC’s latest ID-400W GaN RF transistor series delivers ultra-wideband linearized performance for 5G mid-band radio applications in the 3.4 to 4.1GHz range. RFHIC’s patented FLY-Flange packaging (RF24008DKR3) greatly enhances their bandwidth support versus competing devices. For example, the ID41411DR transistor provides excellent performance for wideband signals and saturated power of 400W with an average power of 56W and linearized ALCR < -49dBc with MaxLIN technology. The ID41411DR also delivers an unmatched drain efficiency of 46% when operating at 3.9GHz.

More about the MaxLIN Solution:

MaxLIN Linearization Technologies increase the power efficiency and linearization performance of wideband power amplifiers. MaxLIN includes crest factor reduction (CFR) and digital pre-distortion (DPD) to adaptively linearize highly non-linear power amplifiers. Its advanced adaptive algorithms exceed the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unwanted emissions requirements with margin while delivering high PA efficiencies of >50%. MaxLIN is integrated into Sierra, MaxLinear’s single-chip solution for 5G Open RAN radio units.

Additionally, MaxLIN designs are supported by radio optimization services. With this unique service offering, MaxLinear deploys proprietary machine learning (ML) algorithms to identify PA nonlinear signatures, to diagnose radio performance bottlenecks, and to optimize DPD configurations. These services rapidly enable MaxLIN customers to fully characterize and optimize their radio lineups within weeks rather than months.

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