TriQuint Announces Tripower Family of 'Green' Base Station Amplifier RF Transistors
Source/Type: News - Staff reports

Author: CompoundSemi News Staff

February 1, 2010... TriQuint Semiconductor, has released the first products in its new 'green' TriPower family of 3G/4G wireless base station RFICs. According to the company, TriPower reduces electricity needed to power network base station amplifiers while it allows operators to more easily increase network capacity and speed. TriQuint says that such a network with 2000 base station ampliers to cover a medium sized city would cut CO2 emissions by about 340 tons each year. According to the US Forestry Service, each acre of trees absorbs about 2.6 tons of CO2 annually. Using TriPower in such a system would be the equivalent of adding more than 130 acres of trees to the ecosystem.

TriQuint Networks Vice President, Brian P. Balut stated, “The complex modulation requirements of 3G and 4G networks cannot be delivered efficiently by legacy semiconductor technologies." He added, "We believe that for reasons of reliability, cost and efficiency, TriPower’s GaAs HV-HBT technology is the best choice.” Balut explained that TriPower RFICs can be easily linearized using conventional Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) techniques.

Independent researchers at the University of California at San Diego have compared key base station amplifier semiconductor technologies including Silicon LDMOS, Gallium Nitride (GaN) and TriPower GaAs HV-HBT technology. UCSD lead researcher, Professor Donald Kimball, concluded in a November 2008 paper that TriPower devices offer a clear efficiency advantage. TriQuint News Release

See the Current Industry News Summary
See this article in its orginal context, with the other current news from the same week