RF MEMS-Tuned High Efficiency Power Amplifier

XCOM Wireless is a small fabless semiconductor and RF MEMS component developer. XCOM focuses on component products for Defense prime contractors and the commercial test and instrumentation communities. This program employs several emerging technologies to substantially improve the efficiency of high-power RF amplifiers, and enable radios to adapt to changing power levels, frequencies, battery conditions, antenna mismatch, and other operational problems. The program objectives are to design and fabricate an RF MEMS circuit that tunes a power amplifier’s output matching circuit. The MEMS are fabricated by the contractor, and the amplifier circuit will be assembled out of high-power discrete transistor and passive components on a compact custom board. Actual hardware can be built and tested at low cost in this Phase I effort because all MEMS and transistor elements have already been designed and, in some cases, already qualified as industrial-grade COTS components. The result of this Phase I will be the first high-power (8 Watt, 280-320 MHz) amplifier that can adapt to changing conditions and perform at a consistently high efficiency regardless of typical operating conditions and output impedance variations.