LNAs suit cellular infrastructure apps

Avago Technologies announced two ultra-low noise, high gain, high linearity GaAs balanced LNAs for cellular infrastructure applications. Avago's MGA-16516/17516, the latest additions to its family of LNAs, helps to significantly improve the sensitivity and dynamic range of cellular infrastructure applications.

Both LNAs feature a compact footprint and are designed to be used as first stage LNAs. Typical applications include cellular base station transceiver radio cards, tower mounted amplifiers, combiners, repeaters and remote/digital radio heads.

Avago's MGA-16516/17516 LNAs are housed in a 4mm x 4mm x 0.85mm surface mount 16-lead QFN package and were developed using Avago's proprietary 0.25?m GaAs enhancement-mode pHEMT process. The MGA-16516 operates from 500MHz to 1,700MHz, while the MGA-17516 operates from 1,700MHz to 2,700MHz. These new LNAs will enable Avago to provide support for GSM, CDMA, UMTS and next-generation LTE cellular bandwidths. The MGA-16516/17516 have been designed to be used with 3dB hybrid couplers at the input and output of LNAs typically found in the front end of cellular base stations, combiners and transceiver radio cards.

In a typical operating environment of 5V and 50mA per channel, the MGA-16516 delivers a 0.45dB noise figure, 17.5dB gain, 11.5dBm input Third Order Intercept Point (IIP3), and 18dBm output power at 1dB compress point (P1dB) at 850MHz. Under the same operating conditions, the MGA-17516 delivers enhanced performance of 0.52dB noise figure, 17.2dB Gain, 13.7dBm IIP3, and 21.5dBm output power at P1dB at 1,850MHz.