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wirelessZONE Products for the week of April 28, 2008
HVVi Semiconductors Says…
Revolutionary New Architecture for Silicon RF Power Transistor Design
First Products Boost Power Output, Frequency Performance while Reducing Power Consumption in Radar/Avionics Designs
HVVi Semiconductors, Inc., a developer of power transistors, announced the first major advance in silicon RF power transistor design in more than 15 years. Based on the world’s first High Frequency, High Voltage Vertical Field Effect Transistor (HVVFET), HVVi’s new architecture delivers frequency bandwidth, voltage and power levels to radar and avionic applications that far exceed the capabilities of current bipolar and LDMOS technologies. This revolutionary new patent-pending technology allows HVVi to achieve performance levels comparable to non-silicon technologies at much more attractive cost levels.
As part of its initial announcement, HVVi is also introducing its first three products based on this innovative new HVVFET architecture. Targeted at high power, pulsed RF applications in the L-band such as IFF, TCAS, TACAN and Mode-S, the three new devices leverage the inherent benefits of the HVVFET process to deliver high output power and high gain in an extremely compact package. All three transistors are designed to operate at 48V.
“While currently-used silicon RF transistor technologies such as bipolar and LDMOS have served radar and avionics designers well, they have hit a ceiling in terms of performance,” said Wil Salhuana, president and CEO. “By creating the first high frequency, high voltage vertical field effect transistor, we have redefined the performance capabilities of the discrete silicon power transistor and opened the door to a vast array of new applications.”
Major System Advantages
Indicative of the performance benefits of the new technology, HVVi’s first products offer radar and avionics system designers a 30 percent reduction in power consumption, a 100 percent increase in gain, and a tenfold increase in ruggedness. Those advantages translate directly into lower operating costs and the ability to support new applications. Moreover, the technology’s lower thermal resistance and higher ruggedness increase reliability and improve MTBF.
From a system’s perspective, HVVFET’s performance advantages in terms of gain, efficiency and power density offer designers a unique opportunity to eliminate amplification stages in Power Amplifiers (PAs), reduce parts count, and shrink PCB space requirements. At the same time, the technology’s higher rated ruggedness allows radar and avionics designers to eliminate bulky and costly isolators and, in the process, significantly reduce system weight, size and cost.
The HVVFET wafer process also offers tremendous advantages in terms of scalability. Its ability to support higher power levels with the same layout and design by simply increasing the size of the die will allow HVVi to support a wide range of applications. That simplicity of design will also allow the company to introduce new products in a very short 90-day cycle.
EN-Genius Says…
Take the inventor of RF LDMOS at Motorola (now Freescale), Bob Davies; add the man responsible for producing Motorola’s RF power transistors, Dave Lutz; plus a couple of other senior Motorola players; and you have a team worth investing in. Add a CEO who took Motorola’s Broadband and Entertainment Division from nothing to a couple of hundred millions of dollars, Wil Salhuana, and you have the ingredients of success straight out of the gate. Then add a Chairman of the Board in the form of Albert Hugo-Martinez, a man who has the financial respect of just about everybody in the electronics industry and you have a team that can get the money it needs and can position itself for any opportunity of an end-game. The team has already received two US patents and another 26 US and 17 foreign are pending.
Investors in HVVi include Mobius, Advanced Technology Ventures, Horizon Ventures and ON Semiconductor, the latter also providing foundry services – making monitoring of the quality of the finished product as simple as a short drive across Phoenix. ON Semi has, of course, vast experience of both their silicon processes and discrete production.
HVVi has invented a vertical process (as compared to a lateral one, such as in LDMOS) that allows for higher drain voltages (with no seen limit as the technique progresses), lower parasitics, higher impedances, and a much better path for heat to be extracted from the device. Higher operating voltage implies that efficiencies will increase as the voltages go up; lower parasitics (capacitances between drain, source and gate as well as series inductances to each) implies better frequency performance; higher impedances suggest much easier matching circuits; better heat path implies higher reliability and margin for any comparable operating conditions. Compared to LDMOS and its current 28 V – 48 V operating voltage range and a high frequency of about 3.5 GHz, HVVi expects that the HVVFET design will allow for drain voltages over 150 V and operating frequencies up to 12.5 GHz.
The target market for the initial devices, whose simplicity suggests potentially very rapid turnaround of new designs, is the avionics and pulsed radar markets. That sounds like a especially wise move. That market is vibrant, technically challenging, and very profitable. They are looking particularly at L-Band applications such as TACAN, TCAS, Mode-S, Ground Radar and IFF.
What HVVi is claiming with the initial devices is that they offer higher gain (2x) than the competition, higher efficiency (+30%), 20:1 VSWR tolerance (2x) and a 2x increase in power density. Size is important. Using mature silicon instead of exotic mixes keeps costs extremely low as well and the reliability is extremely well documented. The higher gain will allow designers to use fewer stages which will not only reduce BOM costs but will also reduce external component count, overall PCB area and will increase efficiency overall. The VSWR ruggedness will also avoid the need for isolators and circulators in any number of system designs.
The first three devices on offer are:
- The HVV1214-25 offering a 25 W rated output power with 17.5 dB of gain over 1.2 GHz to 1.4 GHz with a pulse width of 200 µs and period of 2 ms. S11 is 8 dB, drain efficiency is 49%, and pulse droop <0.2 dB. It is in a ceramic-capped SMT package 205 mm x 175 mm.
- The HVV1214-100 (in NI400) offering 100 W with 19.5 dB gain over 1.2 GHz to 1.4 GHz, also with a pulse width of 200 µs and a period of 2 ms. S11 is 11 dB, drain efficiency is 49%, and pulse droop is <0.3 dB.
- The HVV1011-300 (also in NI-400) offering 300 W with 15 dB gain over 1.030 GHz to 1.090 GHz with 8% efficiency with 50 µs pulse width over a period of 1 ms. S11 is 12 dB, drain efficiency is 48%, and pulse droop is <0.5 dB.
There will also be an HV1011-25, in the SMT package, again.
I like the intuitive part numbers; even I will be able to remember what a device can do!
Unlike many start-ups, these people have got an amazing story going for them. If I was in that kind of business I would not hesitate in investing in them. I would like to see the full data sheets with some CW numbers that can be compared apples-to-apples with other products, but this is obviously an incredibly important step forward in the higher frequency performance of silicon. If the products produced meet the story being told – and I have no doubt that they will – then this is going to be an extremely successful enterprise. I certainly intend to keep my eye on them and add them to my visit list in Phoenix. Very well done!
The three parts are sampling now, both direct and through Richardson Electronics, with production volumes predicted for Q3 2008. Evaluation kits are available. Data sheets and pricing were not available at press time but check at the company’s web site.
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