CPI GaN BUCs: Years of Experience, Innovation, Reliability

Communications & Power Industries (CPI) has been a leader in the radio frequency field for decades. The company is well known in the satellite industry for both excellent product reliability and technological innovation. In fact, CPI supported some of the very first satellite projects (at that time as part of Varian Associates), and has been going strong ever since, shipping more than 50,000 high-power amplifiers (HPAs) around the world. In recent years, CPI has won multiple awards for technical innovation, as well as numerous patents from the U.S. government, which are a testament to the company’s ongoing heavy emphasis on research and development.

While CPI is well known in the satellite industry for its traditional products, including traveling wave tubes, klystrons, and high power amplifiers, it is less well known that CPI has developed some amazing technological advances in multiple fields, including the scientific arena. Customers have tasked the company with creating truly groundbreaking products that require output power reaching into the hundreds of megawatts and operating at frequency levels well beyond the 100 GHz mark. CPI has supported atom smashing technology, radiation therapy equipment, and even won an Emmy award for television transmitter technology.

In 2012, CPI acquired the Codan Satcom business, which manufactured solid state communications products, from Codan Limited. Codan Satcom, like CPI, was also seen in the satellite industry as an innovative company, making breakthroughs in solid state HPA reliability and cost effectiveness. The merging of CPI’s Satcom Products business and Codan Satcom’s solid state business came at an excellent time for both companies – right at the time that Gallium Nitride (GaN)-based solid state amplifiers were being introduced. Utilizing the combined resources and expertise of CPI and Codan Satcom, CPI quickly developed a full line of GaN-based BUCs that are cost-efficient, compact, and highly reliable.

One of the most promising products to result from the expansion of CPI’s solid state business is CPI’s new 160 W Ka-band GaN SSPA/BUC, which will soon be deployed in support of High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems. This innovative product delivers as much as 100 watts of linear output power at the flange, and is, smaller, lighter, and nearly twice as efficient as similar Gallium Arsenide (GaAs)-based amplifiers. The following is a comprehensive list of CPI GaN-based BUCs and SSPAs (click the product name in the table below to access a data sheet containing product specifications):

To learn more about these products, contact your nearest CPI sales person today or call +1 (650) 846-3803.

Product datasheets, as well as budget calculator tools and other information can also be accessed through CPI’s new mobile app, which is available at the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store by searching for “CPI Satcom.”

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