Date: 19/09/2011

Power enhanced RF power LDMOS transistor from Freescale for ATSC, DVB-T and ISDB-T

Freescale Semiconductor says its newly released MRFE6VP8600H, a RF power LDMOS transistor combines the high output power and efficiency with the harsh ruggedness of any competitive device in its class designed for UHF broadcast television applications.

According to Freescale, the MRFE6VP8600H delivers 39 percent greater output power than its predecessor and is designed to deliver maximum performance for many key digital transmission standards including ATSC, DVB-T and ISDB-T and also benefits for television transmitter manufacturers and broadcasters.

The UHF frequency band ranges from 470 MHz to 860 MHz and is used by broadcasters to transmit television signals over the air. The vast majority of television stations currently broadcasting in digital are using the UHF band.

Key specifications of the MRFE6VP8600H include:

125W average RF output power (DVB-T [8k OFDM] signal) at 860 MHz, gain of 19.3 dB and efficiency of 30 percent
600W peak RF power
Can be designed into Class AB, Doherty or drain modulation amplifier architectures, eliminating the need for a specific device optimized for each architecture
Integrated electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection to provide resistance to stray voltages encountered during assembly
Extended negative gate-source voltage range of -6V to +10V to improve performance when operated as the peaking stage of a Doherty amplifier
Housed in Freescale's NI-1230 bolt-down ceramic air cavity package (MRFE6VP8600H) or NI-1230S solder-attach ceramic air cavity package (MRFE6VP8600HS)

"The new MRFE6VP8600H reinforces Freescale's continued commitment to delivering the outstanding performance and efficiency our customers need to thrive, even within industries facing extremely stringent market requirements," said Ritu Favre, vice president and general manager of Freescale's RF Division. "This new offering additionally underscores Freescale's hallmark of leveraging its deep understanding of networking markets to generate performance and efficiency gains via intelligent, system-level design processes."

The MRFE6VP8600H simplifies transmitter design and improve reliability when compared to previous generation solid-state systems and transmitter based on the MRFE6VP8600H can use up to 15 percent less power than previous generations, leading to substantial operating cost savings, as per Freescale.

According to Freescale, the MRFE6VP8600H, when driven to its full rated RF output power, this device will not degrade in performance when driving an impedance mismatch (VSWR) greater than 65:1, at all phase angles, or when driven by twice its rated input power and its ruggedness makes it reliable under adverse conditions such as antenna icing, transmission line failure or operator error, even with drive peaks created by predistortion systems.

The MRFE6VP8600H tolerates the out-of-band reflective load conditions caused by highly selective channel filters and the high peak-to-average ratio (PAR) characteristic of digital transmission schemes employing higher-order modulation techniques such as DVB-T (8k OFDM). The enhanced ruggedness characteristics of the MRFE6VP8600H it leads to employ simplified transmitter protection circuits.

Availability: The MRFE6VP8600H/HS is now in production.

For more information visit: www.freescale.com/RFpower.