Avoiding Design Changes for Long-Life RF Systems

Rochester provides end-to-end support for the complete RF chain

Designers everywhere face the never-ending battle of managing the mismatch between their system’s lifecycle and the obsolescence of the components within it.

In long-life digital systems, when key “heart-beat” components such as Processors are made end-of-life, customers are forced to decide between an unwanted component last-time-buy and a system redesign.

An RF system designer for equipment such as Mobile Broadband, Broadcast, Military Radio, Satellite Comms, Radar, Aerospace, (Beacons and Transponders), and certain Medical applications, must manage each and every component in the signal chain as a “critical” part.

Optimizing the Linearity-Gain-Noise-Power-Cost compromise over a given frequency band in an RF design demands careful component selection, and in most cases, this leads to a single source of supply.

In addition to the restricted component choice, a complex RF system imposes on the designer, many of these applications are also categorized by long production and service lives, and an extremely costly qualification process. Product redesign and requalification are to be avoided at all costs!

In these applications, component Discontinuation presents the RF designer with a perfect storm:

Single-source component supply

Component lifecycle shorter than Product lifecycle

Expensive redesign and requalification

Rochester Electronics - RF system support

A last-time-buy of finished components seems the only possible solution – the quantity available is therefore fixed, and future market changes leave the prospect of lost opportunity costs or surplus unused components. However, the recent Ampleon and Rochester Electronics announcement on the transfer and ongoing support of a portion of the LDMOS-GaN product range provides a unique approach to addressing the issue of long-term component availability.

Within this solution agreement, Ampleon transfers all wafer and production control to Rochester, authorizing them to continue long-term market support. Components retain the same part number, are tested using the original test programs, and are 100% guaranteed to meet the original specifications. Ongoing build from wafer now gives the Customer a risk-free long-term supply solution.

Rochester is also the partner of choice for the long-term supply of both active and discontinued finished products for many of the world’s leading RF manufacturers. With 225 million components including 3,000 RF/Microwave part numbers in stock, Rochester can provide genuine end-to-end support for the complete RF chain.

Learn about the Rochester and Ampleon GAN Partnership

Learn more about Rochester's Ampleon VDMOS portfolio