Allentown, Pa. — Agere Systems Inc. unveiled 21 transistors targeting the wireless base station power amplifier market. Agere's products are targeted for base station equipment.

According to Agere Systems, its new power amplifier transistors can enable much cooler, smaller, and less expensive wireless base stations than are possible using any other RF power transistor technology.

The company’s transistor technology resolves the issue of how to eliminate defects in chips when making ultra-thin silicon wafers. Thicker chips tend be warmer because they don't conduct heat as well as thin chips. Agere created a proprietary wafer scale low cost, and high yield "die (chip) thinning" technique that eliminates chip defects that occur using other companies' approaches, the company says.

Agere’s new product family features laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) process technology.

Agere's new products help accelerate the industry trend to shrink the size and shift the location of today's typical base stations, about the size of a backyard toolshed and installed on the ground, to the size of a suitcase and installed above the ground on wireless antenna towers, the company says.

"The wireless transistor market represents an important new growth opportunity for Agere,” says Sohail Khan, executive vice president of Agere's Infrastructure Systems Group. "By delivering significant cost reductions, our new products will enable wireless service providers to accelerate delivery of lower-cost, feature-rich, high data rate services to cell phone users, such as video streaming, instant messaging and gaming.”

Agere is targeting sales of its product to manufacturers of base stations who also build their own amplifiers, as well as companies that manufacture amplifiers that are sold to base station manufacturers. According to the company, more than 20 companies are evaluating Agere's transistors.

Agere is shipping the transistors in sample quantities and expects to ship in production quantities in the third quarter. Prices for the transistors range from $12 to $207 in quantities of 10,000.