Hi,
I'm in the process of building an RF power amplifier based on op-amps. It uses two paralleled BUF634 power buffer amplifiers in the final stage. One will be on the top face of the board, while the other will be on the bottom face. Unfortunately, only the top one will have room for an heatsink.
My question is, is there a problem if I use an heatsink in the top one (IC4), while leaving the bottom one (IC5) on its own? Or will this cause an imbalance? Should I use no heatsinks at all?
Mind that a single BUF634 can drive the load, but without much margin, especially for impedance mismatches and non-unity SWR, which a RF PA has to deal with. I've used two of such buffer amplifiers in parallel to alleviate that problem. But my question is if using an heatsink on just one will actually make things worse.
Thanks in advance!
Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço
I'm in the process of building an RF power amplifier based on op-amps. It uses two paralleled BUF634 power buffer amplifiers in the final stage. One will be on the top face of the board, while the other will be on the bottom face. Unfortunately, only the top one will have room for an heatsink.
My question is, is there a problem if I use an heatsink in the top one (IC4), while leaving the bottom one (IC5) on its own? Or will this cause an imbalance? Should I use no heatsinks at all?
Mind that a single BUF634 can drive the load, but without much margin, especially for impedance mismatches and non-unity SWR, which a RF PA has to deal with. I've used two of such buffer amplifiers in parallel to alleviate that problem. But my question is if using an heatsink on just one will actually make things worse.
Thanks in advance!
Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço
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