Guerrilla RF Introduces New Solutions for the Rest of Us
By Guerrilla RF, a two-and-a-half year old provider of high performance MMICs that aims to move on smaller opportunities that its larger competitors might not have the resources or the will to address, this week at CTIA Super Mobility introduced a broadband, low noise linear amplifier, and a new addition to its family of high linearity gain blocks.
MMICs, or monolithic microwave integrated circuits, Guerrilla RF’s Vice President of Technical Marketing Alan Ake explained, are used everywhere for a wide range of RF applications from cellular infrastructure to wireless backhaul, and WLAN. They are used where you don’t find a super highly integrated transceiver and front-end module that would be common in a cellular handset, he added.
The company is specifically focused on designing high performance MMICs for all under addressed markets, including in the defense and medical segments, and for WLAN at 2.4gHz and 5gHz, for example. Ake said Guerrilla RF offers solutions for all those customers that are not the Apples and Samsungs of the world but are in need of performance.
The company’s amplifier is noteworthy, Ake said, because it features high linearity, has a small footprint because it has few external components, has low noise, and low loss bypass functionality so it can be used by a wide range of applications and customers.
“The GRF4042 is the initial device in a growing family of high performance amplifiers offering bypass functionality,” said Ake. “All of our devices featuring bypass also incorporate our Guerrilla Armor technology, which provides high off-state isolation even in the presence of high RF input powers. This isolation is especially useful in TDD systems in which significant transmitter RF power can leak into the transceiver receive path.”
The GRF4042 is slated for general availability in the fourth quarter. Pricing for 10,000 parts is 98 cents each.
As for the new addition to the company’s family of high linearity gain blocks, they include the GRF2012 and GRF2013. They are used in cellular infrastructure, including wireless backhaul, as well as military applications. These solutions provide flat gain with high linearity, so it doesn’t take a lot of expertise to use them, and users get good results, said Ake.
Edited by Dominick Sorrentino
