GaN Technology in Base Stations - Why and When?

GaN technology for RF applications has been widely adopted in defense applications, but commercial acceptance has been much slower. Wireless base stations seemed like the most likely commercial early adopter of GaN, but this market has been slow to take off. This paper will review the material properties of GaN material and how these translate to device parameters. Developments with incumbent LDMOS technology, along with new linearization schemes will illustrate future direction for the wireless base station market. The paper will close with forecasts for the overall power market and how quickly GaN revenue will grow.