ACHIEVING HIGHER EFFICIENCY IN VIDEO / TELEMETRY / DIGITAL TRANSMITTERS USING LATERALLY DIFFUSED METAL OXIDE SEMICONDUCTOR FIELD EFFECT TRANSISTORS (LDMOSFETs)

Abstract

A 10- or 20-Watt, L- or S-band transmitter commonly consumes the majority of the available DC power on a telemetry pack -- often more than all the remaining components combined. A new family of transistors allows a substantial increase in DC to RF efficiency without the use of complex and costly switching regulators. With ever increasing data rates requiring more RF bandwidth (and correspondingly lower receiver sensitivities), transmitters using these transistors offer twice the RF power at little or no increase in DC current. Alternately, in other situations such as observation balloons, the same RF power can be achieved with approximately 40% less current resulting in significantly longer mission life. This paper describes the method for achieving higher efficiency transmitters using new LDMOSFETs.