Power LNAs

A power LNA is a low-noise amplifier engineered to handle larger signal swings than a typical front-end LNA without compressing or generating intermodulation products. Where a standard LNA optimizes purely for the lowest possible noise figure, a power LNA accepts a small NF penalty in exchange for substantially higher OIP3 and OP1dB — the right call when the receiver has to coexist with strong transmitters or in-band blockers (cell towers, radar, broadcast).

Selection comes down to balancing noise figure against linearity: enough NF margin to meet the system sensitivity budget, with OIP3 and OP1 high enough to survive the worst-case interferer in the band. Supply current is generally higher than a low-current LNA (a fundamental trade-off — linearity costs DC power), but the parts are still internally matched to 50 Ω for a single-bias-resistor drop-in design.

Typical use cases include cellular base-station and DAS receive paths, repeaters and tower-mounted amplifiers, point-to-point microwave backhaul, broadband CATV head-ends, and any receive chain that has to tolerate a strong adjacent transmitter. AEC-Q100 grade-2 qualified variants are denoted with a "-W" suffix.

The table below lists the active power LNA portfolio sorted by SKU, with frequency range, gain, noise figure, OIP3, OP1, and package. Click any SKU for the full data sheet, S-parameters, and reference designs.