Designing With Plastic RF Power Transistors

By Dan Leih, Leonard Pelletier, and Mahesh Shah, Freescale Semiconductor

For many semiconductor products, plastic long ago emerged as the package technology of choice. For commodity products, such as small signal transistors, plastic offers low-cost encapsulation that is easily scaled to high volumes. For RF power amplifiers, plastic packaging helps address certain performance limitations inherent in ceramic devices. This white paper outlines the six main benefits of RF power plastic packages and provides recommendations on PCB layout. It also discusses mounting and soldering techniques that help create a robust, cost-effective design solution using over-molded plastic RF power devices.