The Challenge in Packaging and Assembling the Advanced Power Amplifiers

Abstract

Transistors have been widely employed in the areas of power amplifiers and power electronics. Packaging and assembly technologies become critical to the success of such applications where high power dissipation (in the form of heat) is involved while operating the transistors. With the ever increasing output power of such applications, heat dissipated from the transistors needs to be more effectively transferred out of the package so that the junction temperature in the transistors can be maintained at a reasonable low level. This is necessary in order to prolong the life time of the transistor devices. Fig. 8.1 shows the predicted device life time versus the junction temperature for typical Si-based transistors as stress tested at 150 °C.