MaxLinear and RFHIC have collaborated on a power amp solution for high-power macro cell radio units (RUs) that lowers power consumption, weight, and volume. The setup combines RFHIC’s GaN power amplifiers with MaxLinear’s digital predistortion (DPD) technology running on the Sierra radio SoC. The companies will showcase the solution at next week’s Mobile World Congress 2025.
MaxLinear’s DPD technology (MaxLIN) and Sierra radio chip, combined with RFHIC’s ID19801D GaN power amplifier and SDM19007-30H drive amplifier, achieve 55.2% line-up power efficiency with ACLR < -61 dBc and EVM < 3% at 49.6 dBm (91 W). The setup operates in the PCS band (1930–1995 MHz) with 2×NR10MHz carriers.
The Sierra radio SoC supports all major RU applications, including conventional macro, massive MIMO, pico, and all-in-one small cells. It integrates an RF transceiver supporting up to 8 transmitters, digital frontend with MaxLIN, low-PHY baseband processor, O-RAN split 7.2x fronthaul interface, and Arm Cortex-A53 quad-core CPU subsystem.
RFHIC’s ID series GaN power transistors operate from 1.8 GHz to 4.2 GHz, delivering saturated power levels of 410 W, 460 W, 700 W, and 800 W. The SDM series two-stage GaN hybrid drive amplifiers, internally matched to 50 Ω, cover 1.8 GHz to 4.1 GHz with output power options of 40 W, 60 W, and 80 W.
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