0720 Mw Empower 2225 Amplifier 5f0889183475d

C-Band Amp Delivers 90 kW With Liquid-Cooled GaN Output Devices

July 10, 2020

Modular amplifier pumps up CW and pulse power in EW, radar, directed energy, and satellite communications applications.

With a solid-state GaN design replacing tube technology, Empower RF Systems' Model 2225 is a long-duty-cycle, pulsed amplifier operating from 5.2 to 5.9 GHz with a liquid-cooled and scalable architecture. The amplifier serves EW, radar, directed energy, and satellite communications applications in which many kilowatts of CW and pulse power are required. This new modern architecture offers scalability for affordable upgrade paths to future power needs by adding hardware to an existing system. Additional racks can be combined, and for racks not fully populated, 2U amplifier drawers can be added without the need for tuning.

The amplifier system layout consists of a system controller in a 3U form factor and up to 16 hot-swappable 2U amplifier drawers, with each amplifier drawer containing an integrated power supply in its 2U chassis. This arrangement eliminates the risk of an RF section or single power-supply failure taking the entire amplifier offline. In the event of a failure, only a fractional reduction of output power occurs, and the amplifier system remains online.

The system is capable of asymmetrical and random pulse-width (100 ns to 500 µs) and duty-cycle operation and features full digital peak and RMS detection for accurate metering. Each 2U amplifier module is digitally set for phase and gain.

Empower RF Systems, www.empowerrf.com

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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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.