High-Power SSPAs Serve Commercial and Defense Applications

June 1, 2023

With their optimized output power, gain, and power-added efficiency over their respective frequency ranges, this trio of solid-state power amplifiers supports the growing industry need for modular, scalable, reliable, and fully tested products.

David Maliniak

Related To: Microwaves & RF

This article is part of our IMS 2023 coverage.

Along with a host of other products debuting at IMS, Qorvo will be in Booth 935 with three new solid-state power amplifiers (SSPAs) for commercial and defense communications, radar, electronic-warfare (EW), and other wideband applications. The QPB2040N, QPB0220N, and QPB0618N, part of Qorvo's Spatium SSPA portfolio, provide an excellent alternative to traveling-wave-tube amplifiers (TWTAs).

Qorvo's QPB2040N SSPA operates from 18 to 40 GHz, spanning the K and Ka bands. With its wideband output power performance (100 W CW) in a compact size of less than 50 in.³, it's a suitable building block for various mmWave subsystems in wide-ranging applications. The QPB2040N is equipped with an integrated bias card, which reduces electrical losses in the bias networks and provides individualized bias settings for each amplifier blade in the SSPA, as well as drain pulsing for superior power savings and noise performance.

The new QPB0220N and QPB0618N SSPAs are solid-state, spatial combining amplifiers operating in the S, C, X, and Ku bands. With their optimized output power, gain, and power-added efficiency over their respective frequency ranges, these Spatium SSPAs further expand the company's family of products to support a growing industry need for modular, scalable, reliable, and fully tested products.

Over the wide frequency bands and over temperature at CW conditions, Spatium SSPAs are claimed to provide higher output power and efficiency than any other known solid-state products in the industry. Compared to TWTAs, the QPB0220N covers a wider frequency band than any other available product, said Qorvo.

According to the company, its Spatium SSPAs provide a more reliable, easier-to-use solution with reduced size, weight, and total cost of ownership, as compared to solutions based on their closest TWTA counterparts.

For more information, visit the company's website.

For more IMS 2023 coverage, visit our digital magazine.

About the Author

David Maliniak | Executive Editor, Microwaves & RF

I am Executive Editor of Microwaves & RF, an all-digital publication that broadly covers all aspects of wireless communications. More particularly, we're keeping a close eye on technologies in the consumer-oriented 5G, 6G, IoT, M2M, and V2X markets, in which much of the wireless market's growth will occur in this decade and beyond. I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, developers, and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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About me:

In his long career in the B2B electronics-industry media, David Maliniak has held editorial roles as both generalist and specialist. As Components Editor and, later, as Editor in Chief of EE Product News, David gained breadth of experience in covering the industry at large. In serving as EDA/Test and Measurement Technology Editor at Electronic Design, he developed deep insight into those complex areas of technology. Most recently, David worked in technical marketing communications at Teledyne LeCroy, leaving to rejoin the EOEM B2B publishing world in January 2020. David earned a B.A. in journalism at New York University.