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AUSTIN, TEXAS - A single-supply gallium arsenide-based power amp and a silicon germanium carbon (SiGeC) tri-band lownoise amplifier for receivers are among the devices Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector will field in the RF IC market.
Aheterojunction or enhancement-mode GaAs field-effect transistor (FET) would allow antenna drivers to run from a single 3- or 5-volt supply, thus saving space, power and design difficulties in cellular handsets. Motorola revealed development work on the Gas pseudomorphic high-electron mobility transistor-a true enhancement-mode device-at Horizons, the company's biannual gathering of editors and analysts here.
The depletion-mode GaAs FETs currently used in cell phones require a negative biaseffectively a dual-rail power supply-said Karl Johnson, engineering manager in charge of device development at Motorola's Embedded Systems Technology Lab in Tempe, Ariz. and principle designer of the enhancement-mode device. The depletion-mode devices are effectively always "on," and require a negative bias (on the order of -4.2 V) to turn them off.
While the current requirement is not...