4 February 2011

GaAs to remain dominant in cellular PAs despite CMOS & LDMOS gaining at low end

Driven by LTE (long-term evolution), multi-mode power amplifiers (PAs), cellphone sales in developing countries and rapidly growing demand for data devices, the cellular RF power amplifier (PA) market will grow strongly to $3.7bn over the next five years, despite competition and pricing pressure, according to the Strategy Analytics RF & Wireless Components market report ‘PA Forecast 2011–2015’.

“LTE devices will quickly emerge as the second most significant driver of PA demand after UMTS devices,” reckons Christopher Taylor, director, RF & Wireless Components. “Most LTE devices require one 2G/2.5G power amp, one or more 3G power amps, and one LTE power amp. While this may sound like a windfall in the making for PA suppliers, OEMs will demand multi-mode PAs that can handle more than one air interface to reduce the front-end complexity and bill of materials in LTE mobile devices,” he notes. “Multi-mode PAs require improved methods to manage linearity and efficiency, such as envelope tracking, which will bring new players into the PA market as partners or competitors to existing PA vendors,” Taylor predicts.

“The changes coming to the power amplifier market represent new opportunities for CMOS PAs to compete with the incumbent GaAs, but also new technical challenges,” comments Eric Higham, director of the Gallium Arsenide and Compound Semiconductor service at Strategy Analytics. “Overall, GaAs will remain the dominant technology in PAs over the next five years, with continuing gains by CMOS and LDMOS especially in lower-priced mobile devices.”

The report covers discrete PAs, PA-switch modules, PA-duplexers, multi-mode PAs, and power amplifiers by mobile device generation (2G, 3G, 3.9G/4G) and by major air interface (CDMA, GSM/GPRS/EDGE, W-CDMA, TD-SCDMA, LTE). It also provides an overview of the breadth of product technologies offered by the leading front-end module and PA suppliers, and the status of multi-mode PAs from Skyworks, RF Micro Devices, Renesas, TriQuint, and others.

See related items:

GaAs IC market grows 36% in 2010

Tags: GaAs cellular PAs GaAs

Visit: www.strategyanalytics.com

Join Semiconductor Today's group on LinkedIn