Infineon Technologies has added a high-sensitivity LNA (low noise amplifier) with a noise figure of only 0.6 dB for GPS applications. The BGA715L7 fulfills mobile phone design requirements for high-sensitivity and immunity to interference of cellular signals while contributing to increased battery lifetime with a low power consumption of 5.94 mW and the capability to operate at 1.8 V supply voltage.

GPS functionality is expected to be a standard feature for the next generations of mobile phones. The main challenges for the growing mobile GPS market are to achieve higher sensitivity and higher immunity against interference of cellular signals. For safety and emergency reasons, government regulations, for example in the USA and in Japan, require mobile phones to receive GPS signals at very low power levels. This means signal reception has to be ensured indoors and even in underground parking lots.

Based on Infineon’s cost-effective SiGe:C technology, the BGA715L7 offers the best-in-class noise figure of only 0.6 dB, which is a 0.2 dB improvement over the next SiGe competitor. The low current consumption of only 3 mA is about 20% lower compared to alternative devices, which results in longer battery lifetime.

The broad power supply, ranging from 1.5 V to 3.6 V, and digital control ranging from1.0 V to 3.6 V assure compatibility with all GPS chipsets available in the market and enable low voltage designs for energy saving. The BGA715L7 shows a high gain of 20 dB and high linearity (input compression point of -12 dBm at 2.8 V).

An internal smart biasing circuit ensures stable operation over temperature and supply voltage variations. On-chip ESD protection is provided up to 1 kV HBM, which simplifies system ESD protection and makes the device very robust against ESD events during the assembly process. The BGA715L7 needs only three external passive components therefore supporting compact and space saving designs.

Availability, package and pricing

Samples of the BGA715L7 are available now, with volume production scheduled to begin in September 2008. Infineon provides evaluation kits to support customer designs. Pricing starts at USD 0.5 each in 10,000 quantity. The BGA715L7 is shipped in a tiny leadless TSLP7-1 package of 2.0 mm x 1.3 mm x 0.4 mm in size, which is pin-to-pin compatible with the widely used predecessor product BGA615L7.

More information: www.infineon.com/rfmmic