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At this week’s IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS 2007) in Hawaii, Toshiba (Japan's largest semiconductor manufacturer and the world's fourth largest), announced its first commercially available gallium nitride product (with samples available now).

The TGI8596-50 is an internally matched X-band GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) power amplifier that operates at 8.5-9.6GHz with an output power of 50W. The device features a 3dB compression point of 47.5dBm, linear gain of 9.0dB, and drain current of 4.5A (typical) with a supply voltage of 24V at 25°C. Targeted applications include radar systems and medical applications (such as oncology).

“GaN HEMT amplifiers have the potential to achieve significantly higher gain and output power than gallium arsenide field-effect transistors (FETs) at comparable frequency and input power,” says Homayoun Ghani, business development manager, Microwave, Logic and Small Signal Devices, in the Discrete Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc (TAEC). As a follow-on to this initial device, Toshiba is also developing C- and Ku-band GaN HEMTs for satellite communications applications."

Last year, Toshiba announced prototypes of a 6GHz, C-band, GaN power FET with output power of 174W (at last June’s IMS 2006) and a 9.5GHz X-band power FET with output power of 81.3W (at last November’s IEEE Compound Semiconductor IC Symposium 2006). Each device achieved record output power at their respective frequencies, showing the potential increase in power output that can be achieved with GaN-based devices, says the firm.

Visit: http://www.toshiba.com/taec