POWER AND LINEAR IC SOLUTIONS
LNA Enables GPS Reception in Harsh Conditions 
Improves performance and saves power budget

GPS navigation systems are becoming increasingly common, not only for fleet management, personal security and in premium-marque cars, but also in mainstream consumer appliances such as Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs) and Mobile Phones. As a result there is an increasing need to improve GPS reception in weak-signal conditions such as indoors or in urban canyons: a need that can be satisfied by the BGA615L7 Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) from Infineon Technologies.



The BGA615L7 is one of the few GPS LNAs that can boost receiver sensitivity and deliver superior user experience even in weak signal conditions. It achieves this with minimal impact on system power consumption. Consuming approximately 3mA of current in on mode and featuring a shutdown state for additional current savings, the BGA615L7 ensures the availability of a strong receive signal at the input to the actual GPS receiver. This allows immediate location determination, a significant reduction in processor energy consumption, and hence a lower power budget overall.

Featuring a gain of 18dB, a low noise figure of 0.9dB, and an input third-order intercept point of -1dBm at 1.575GHz the BGA615L7 delivers the high linearity required to minimise intermodulation distortion. This is essential in multi-purpose appliances that also use adjacent frequency bands such as Bluetooth, Mobile-TV, WLAN and digital telephony.

The BGA615L7 can withstand 1kV ESD (Human Body Model) while providing pre-matched input and matched output capabilities on chip, significantly easing the system designer’s task. Infineon also provides a range of evaluation boards and support products to assist the designer.

The device has already achieved considerable success: today, the two leading players for PNDs are using it for their portable devices and three out of the 'Top Five' names in mobile phones are using it in GPS-enabled feature phone devices. As a result, Infineon has already shipped more than 22 million units of the device.

The BGA615L7 is provided in a tiny P-TSLP-7-1 Thin Small Leadless Package and requires a supply voltage from 2.4V to 3.2V.

Features

  • Monolithic Si-Ge GPS low noise amplifier
  • High Gain: 18dB
  • Low noise figure: 0.9dB
  • Power off function
  • Supply voltage: 2.4V to 3.2V
  • Supply Current: 3mA (on); less than 3μA (off)
  • Tiny P-TSLP-7-1 leadless package
  • RF output internally matched to 50Ω
  • Low external component count
  • 1kV HBM ESD protection

Applications

  • 1575MHz GPS

For further information, including a copy of Infineon's BGA615L7 Datasheet, please click here