IN Brief:
- Qorvo’s QPB1055 integrates seven C-band BAW filter channels, a bypass path, switching and routing into a 6 × 6 mm package.
- The QPA2311 delivers 50 W with more than 55% power-added efficiency across the 5 to 6 GHz band.
- A 200 W QPA0018 MMIC provides more than 20 dB gain and is intended to remove an external high power driver stage.
Qorvo has introduced a C-band radar component set combining a switched bulk acoustic wave filter bank with 50 W and 200 W gallium nitride power amplifiers for frequency-agile electronically scanned radar systems operating between 5.2 and 5.9 GHz.
The receive-side QPB1055 integrates seven BAW filter channels, a bypass path, RF switching, routing and control within a 6 × 6 × 0.79 mm surface mount package. Qorvo specifies 40 dBc close-in rejection and 480 ns channel switching, allowing the receiver to move between defined portions of C-band without assembling a separate filter and switch network for every path.
Strong signals outside the wanted radar channel can reach sensitive receiver stages before digital processing has an opportunity to remove them. Front end filtering therefore has to reject energy that could compress a low-noise amplifier, overload a mixer or reduce the usable dynamic range while still passing the selected channel with manageable insertion loss.
BAW filters create their frequency response through acoustic resonance in a piezoelectric structure. Their high quality factor supports selective filtering in a small semiconductor package, although each resonator remains designed around a defined frequency range rather than behaving as an infinitely tunable filter. Qorvo uses multiple filter channels and switches between them to provide contiguous coverage from 5.2 to 5.9 GHz.
The QPB1055 requires no external impedance matching. Combining filtering and routing within one module reduces the number of RF transitions around the receiver, where every discrete switch, trace and package introduces insertion loss and another discontinuity that has to be considered in the signal chain.
Qorvo pairs that receive architecture with two GaN power amplifiers for transmission. The QPA2311 operates from 5.3 to 5.9 GHz and produces 50 W, with power-added efficiency above 55% across the broader 5 to 6 GHz range. It is designed as a drop-in option for systems using the company’s earlier TGA2307-SM footprint.
Power-added efficiency describes how effectively the amplifier converts supplied DC power into additional RF output after accounting for the RF power already present at its input. Better efficiency reduces the heat that has to be removed and lowers the electrical demand of each transmit channel, which becomes increasingly significant when the same RF path is repeated across many array elements.
The higher-power QPA0018 delivers 200 W between 5.2 and 5.9 GHz. Qorvo specifies the two-stage MMIC with more than 20 dB gain and efficiency above 50% across the band, allowing it to operate without a separate high power amplifier immediately ahead of it.
Removing that driver cuts another active stage from the chain, together with its DC load, thermal output and RF interfaces. Those savings are multiplied across electronically scanned arrays containing large numbers of repeated channels, where apparently modest device-level inefficiencies can accumulate into substantial power and cooling requirements.
The devices join Qorvo’s existing C-band limiters, low-noise amplifiers, switches and driver amplifiers rather than constituting a complete radar front end by themselves. System designers still have to determine receiver gain distribution, limiter protection, antenna architecture, power supply and thermal management around the components.
Qorvo introduced the set during European Microwave Week 2026 in London and has made samples and evaluation kits available for the QPB1055, QPA2311 and QPA0018. The component family gives designers a more integrated receive path and two different GaN transmit-power options within the same portion of C-band.
