Cree, Inc., a leading global supplier of silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) wafers and devices, has introduced the new CDPA35045 asymmetric Doherty power amplifier (PA) reference design for the 3.5 to 3.7 GHz band. This band is an additional spectrum space intended to complement small cell technology by providing increased wireless system capacity for both licensed wireless carrier services and unlicensed public use, such as Wi-Fi. Providing 10 W average output power and excellent predistortion (DPD) correctability, this proven Doherty PA design utilizes Cree’s 30 W CGHV27030S and 15 W CGHV27015S GaN HEMT devices, which can operate with either 50 or 28 V drain supplies and enable enhanced design flexibility for telecommunications, wideband tactical radio, and radar applications spanning low frequencies to 6 GHz.
Cree’s CDPA35045 was evaluated by engineers at Xilinx in a 3.5 GHz test radio platform that implemented Xilinx® CFR and DPD SmartCORE™ IP on a Xilinx ZC706 evaluation board featuring the company’s Zynq® 7Z045 All Programmable System-on-Chip (APSoC) as the processing engine. The evaluation proved that this combination of Xilinx Zynq APSoC devices and Cree® GaN devices results in highly efficient, low cost, and low power products that enable full flexibility of control processing and the radio signal.
Consequently, the Cree® CDPA35045 asymmetric Doherty PA combined with Xilinx radio signal processing IP is an effective solution for small cell implementation in the 3.5 to 3.7 GHz wireless band. This combination provides base station designers with a proven design that supports the development of new small cell wireless infrastructure equipment, significantly reducing design time and enabling faster product time to market.
For more information about Cree’s new CDPA35045 asymmetric Doherty PA reference design for the 3.5–3.7GHz band, please visit www.cree.com.