The advent of 5G has spurred a rethinking of wireless infrastructure, from semiconductors to base-station system architectures to network topologies.
At the semiconductor level, the mainstream commercialization of gallium-nitride-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) has opened the door to improved RF power density, space savings, and energy efficiency. These improvements come at affordable cost structures that are on par with LDMOS at scaled volume production levels, as well as far below GaN-on-silicon-carbide (GaN-on-SiC).
In parallel, the use case for GaN has expanded beyond discrete transistors for high-power RF applications. The economies of scale achieved with GaN’s propagation into commercial 4G LTE wireless infrastructure has enabled GaN’s migration into the monolithic-microwave-integrated circuit (MMIC) market, where it’s helping system designers achieve higher levels of functionality and device integration for next-generation 5G systems.