Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has announced that it will begin shipping samples of a new Gallium Nitride (GaN) power amplifier module for use in 5G massive MIMO (mMIMO) base stations on September 21, 2023. Power amplifier modules help reduce the power consumption of 5G mMIMO base stations.
Providing high-speed, large-capacity communications, 5G mobile networks are becoming increasingly popular across the world, with their 5G mMIMO base stations installed predominantly in metropolitan areas.
Gallium Nitride (GaN) power amplifier modules
Highly efficient power amplifier modules play an important role by reducing the power consumption
Since these base stations utilize multi-element antennas and a correspondingly high number of power amplifiers, highly efficient power amplifier modules play an important role by reducing the power consumption and manufacturing costs of these base stations.
In addition, the power amplifier module needs to deliver 3GPP-compliant low distortion characteristics over a wide frequency range, in order to be compatible with multiple countries' networks.
Mitsubishi Electric to start sample shipments
Mitsubishi Electric will commence sample shipments of a GaN power amplifier module for 5G mMIMO base stations that can deliver an average output power of 8W (39 dBm) over wide frequencies ranging from 3.4GHz to 3.8GHz. In particular, the product is suitable for 64T64R mMIMO antennas because of its more than 43% high power-added efficiency operation.
The high efficiency and low distortion result from Mitsubishi Electric’s new GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs). The wideband characteristics in addition to the high efficiency are realized using the company's original circuit design and high-density packaging techniques.
