24 April 2015

Peregrine launches glitch-less RF digital step attenuators

Peregrine Semiconductor Corp of San Diego, CA, USA – a fabless provider of radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) – has launched three UltraCMOS glitch-less RF digital step attenuators (DSAs). As the next generation to the firm's existing DSA portfolio, the glitch-less attenuators feature an extended temperature range, a wider power supply, a faster switching speed, broader control logic support, increased ESD tolerance and glitch-less attenuation state transitions. The PE43711 and PE43712 are designed for wireless-infrastructure devices, land-mobile-radio (LMR) applications and point-to-point communication systems; the PE43713 is suited to test-and-measurement (T&M) applications.

When switching attenuation states with a DSA, there is a brief 'glitch' or transient spike in output power. If left alone, this glitch could lead to degraded signal quality and possible damage to power amplifier sub-assemblies. To minimize this glitch, engineers deploy a software or firmware workaround that reduces the effect of this transient spike. With the new glitch-less DSAs, this output power glitch is significantly reduced to less than 0.3dB, says Peregrine, enabling users to decrease their engineering overhead and prevent damage to expensive sub-assemblies.

"In 2004 Peregrine Semiconductor introduced the world's first single-chip DSA and has since shipped tens of millions of units," says director of marketing Kinana Hussain. "The PE43711, PE43712 and PE43713 offer improved performance and features along with a solution to one of our customers' biggest challenges — attenuation state transition glitches."

The PE43711, PE43712 and PE43713 are 50Ω, 7-bit DSAs that support a broad frequency range from 9kHz to 6GHz. They cover a 31.75dB attenuation range with flexible attenuation steps of 0.25dB, 0.5dB and 1dB. The DSAs are capable of maintaining 0.25dB monotonicity through 4GHz, 0.5dB monotonicity through 5GHz and 1dB monotonicity through 6GHz.

Pin-for-pin compatible with Peregrine's legacy DSAs, the PE43711, PE43712 and PE43713 offer product specification improvements including an extended temperature range of –40°C to 105°C, a wider power supply of 2.3-5.5V, a faster switching time of 275ns, control logic support of both 1.8V and 3.3V, increased ESD tolerance of 3000V HBM and glitch-less attenuation state performance of less than 0.3dB.

The PE43711 is offered in a 24-lead, 4mm x 4mm QFN package, while the PE43712 and PE43713 are packaged in a 32-lead 5mm x 5mm QFN. Volume production units, samples and evaluation kits are available now. For 10,000-unit orders, each PE43711 is $2.60, each PE43712 is $2.80 and each PE43713 is $8.80. 

See related items:

Peregrine launches pin-compatible PE4312 50Ω RF digital step attenuator upgrade from PE4302

Tags: Peregrine CMOS SOI Digital step attenuators

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