Filtronic, a provider of RF and mm-Wave technology, has a commercially available W band 92-114 GHz solid-state power amplifier (SSPA) at the European Microwave Week in Paris this week. The newly developed Cerus 32 (W) incorporates Filtronic’s world-leading monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology, delivering high output power and linearity. This makes it perfect for extended transmission ranges, increased data rates and any application where robustness, reliability and efficient communication are key.
The product has a small footprint of just 149 x 149 x 80 millimeters. However, the size of Cerus 32 has no bearing on its power. Compared to its predecessors and other products on the market, it offers improved signal strength, better signal quality, lower power consumption, enhanced link budget and wider band coverage.
This high gain amplifier also helps keep the cost of overall projects to a minimum, since fewer amplification stages are needed in a system. As well as reducing costs, this also simplifies the design and improves reliability since each additional stage introduces potential points of failure and noise.
“Already, 2024 is shaping up to be a fantastic year for Filtronic,” explained Nat Edington, CEO. “Earlier this year, we were awarded the King’s Award for Innovation, and we’ve broken into new markets with several large orders. This product is a great example of us pushing the performance boundaries further. European Microwave Week is the perfect place to debut the Cerus 32 (W), a product that opens the door to even higher frequency applications.”
The Cerus 32 offers a 32-amplifier configuration. Filtronic will also offer 4-way and 8-way editions for applications with lower power requirements. The low band version, suitable for 92-100 GHz, and the high band version, for 102-114 GHz, cover an extremely wide band, which is not an industry standard. This makes it suitable for a number of markets such as telecoms, SATCOM, defense and test equipment.
The Cerus 32 (W) is a modular building block, employing an extensive field-proven, high-reliability architecture that Filtronic has already scaled into the volume at E-band, that can be easily integrated with a proven transceiver and customized without excessive time or cost.