Elite RF, a radio frequency (RF) power amplifier company in Illinois USA, is defying all odds of the global electronic components shortage and is tripling in size with a recent purchase of 25000 sq ft facility in Hanover Park.
Before we move further, let’s understand what is RF power amplifier? It is a type of power amplifier that converts a low power radio frequency signal into high power signal. Basic attributes of this device are power output, frequency bandwidth, power efficiency, gain and linearity. RF represents radio frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum with range from 20 kHz to 300 GHz, and it serves as an energy source in many industrial applications.
The continuous technological advancements in the communication, electronic warfare, medical, plasma generation, particle accelerators, computing and many other industries is pushing the RF designer community to create power amplifiers that can deliver energy with extreme accuracy. Customization is more important than ever. The management team at Elite RF are ex-Motorola engineering leaders and has a combined experience of over a century in the RF world. Their vast RF design experience guides the company to navigate through tough times like the current semiconductor shortages by creating their designs around available components with shorter lead times.
By default, shorter lead times is the demand of the market and that’s where CoTS (commercial off the shelf) product designs comes into play. Elite RF has developed over 250+ documented Class A and Class AB, pulsed and CW (continuous wave) amplifiers that can cover a wide array of output power requirements. The company has also created a concise first of its kind RF test equipment (popularly known as Test Bench in a BoxTM) that saves test bench space and has the functionality of 6 pieces of test equipment.
John Mastela, VP of Sales and Marketing says that the company is on track to hit 300% CAGR for at least next 3 years and hence the addition of a bigger facility to develop solid state RF devices for more complex projects. He believes there is a very bright future as tube-based magnetrons will be replaced with these solid-state devices where controlled power is required for process efficiency. As per Emergen Research, the global industrial magnetron market size reached USD 439.8 mn in 2020 and magnetrons are inefficient due to power stability or frequency control issues. This idea of solid state is synonymous to bulky tube-based television sets in 1980s becoming obsolete to today’s sleek highly functional smart TV.
To support engineering community, the company has created online RF calculators that covers a wide range of calculations. The market opportunities that lie ahead for the RF world is enormous and exciting and the scientific developments are worth to watch out for.
