Microwave Engineering Europe - April 2008 - (Page 27)

INTERVIEW — Mitsubishi Electric Europe 27 price and efﬁciency characteristics, though it is possible that through the use of say three PAs the majority of these bands can be covered with an acceptable trade off between price and efﬁciency. This situation will require the use of more PAs per handset or broadband PAs as more multi-band phones are manufactured for the mid- and high-end markets. MWEE: As a supplier to the DBS market, the use of plastic packaging lowers end product costs. What happens to performance and how do you address this issue? Dr Abdin: We have proven that it is possible to compensate for the disadvantages of HEMT performance due to the plastic package using new wafer technology and an advanced plastic package design. To this end, Mitsubishi Electric offers high-performance ﬁrst stage HEMT devices for LNBs at low cost. Plastic acts as a dielectric and typically degrades frequency performance by 1 to 2 dB and gain by 1 to 2 dB, compared to traditional ceramic packages. We compensate by improving the die performance and by adding an air cavity which prevents the die from coming into contact with the plastic package. In satellite and HDTV broadcast applications the LNB is getting more complex. Today, typically the LNB needs to be able to track up to ﬁve satellites than before and may contain over forty HEMT devices, where before only 2 to 4 were used. In the USA satellite is been driven as the preferred solution for DBS due to much lower penetration of cable than it is the case in Europe. The LNB market is consumer orientated and consequently we need to offer complex, high-performance technology at the lowest cost possible. For example, in typical LNB applications we are looking at a cost per HEMT as low as 0.1 cents. MWEE: I presume that MELCO owns their own fabs. What are the advantages of your fab and technological model? Dr Abdin: The time between the development and mass-production stage should be as short as possible as time-to-market is very important. Consequently, by owning our fabs we have an advantage, which is further enhanced as we use the same line for both the development and mass-production stages. One should note that basic semiconductor technology is advanced through the mass-production experience as companies learn to implement different methods to achieve better results in both performance and cost. Further, in the case of GaAs devices, the device technology is more important than the circuit when it comes to differentiating our products with respect to competitors. Visit www.mitsubishichips.com/global/ products/hf/index.html for further information the company’s HF products. Microwave Engineering ● April 2008 ● www.mwee.com 024-025-026-027_MWEE.indd 27 28/03/08 14:07:28 http://www.mitsubishichips.com/Global/products/hf/index.html http://www.mitsubishichips.com/Global/products/hf/index.html http://www.dowkey.com http://www.dowkey.com http://www.mwee.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Microwave Engineering Europe - April 2008

Microwave Engineering Europe - April 2008 News Contents Comment Test and Measurement: Comprehensive WiMAX and Wi-Fi Product Design Demands Effective Channel Emulation Military/Aerospace Focus: Hardware Needs Limit Software Radio Interview — Mitsubishi Electric Europe: GaAs Technologies Spanning High-End Space and Radar Through to Cost-Sensitive Handset and LNB Applications How Do You Test ZigBee Transmitters? Advanced Receiver Design Boosts Performance CMOS PAs Pave the Way for One-Chip Phones Products Calendar

Microwave Engineering Europe - April 2008

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