Peregrine UltraCMOS Digital Step Attenuators Feature Serial Addressability

(Product News, 12 Jun 2009)

Peregrine Semiconductor Corp. released the latest additions to its UltraCMOS Digital Step Attenuator (DSA) 50Ω series. Building on their high-performance predecessors, along with direct and latched parallel interface logic the new HaRP-enhanced devices offer highly flexible serial programmability with attenuation options covering a 7.75dB (PE43501) and 15.75dB (PE43601) attenuation range in 0.25dB steps.

The PE43501 and PE43601 DSAs offer best-in-class linearity, outstanding attenuation accuracy and low Insertion Loss (IL). As with all UltraCMOS silicon-on-sapphire RFICs, there is no gate lag nor phase drift providing exceptionally fast settling time, making them ideal for next generation wireless protocols such as LTE, WiMAX and TD-SCDMA (China’s 3G standard for mobile telecommunication). These devices provide the industries best linearity and broadband accurracy for cellular base stations, repeaters and femtocells.

These 50-Ohm DSAs have an operating frequency range of near DC up to 6GHz with exceptional low frequency performance, Input IP3 > +60dBm at 3GHz, superior noise immunity and ESD tolerance of 500V HBM.

The device operates with equivalent performance at 3.3V and 5V supply with very low power consumption, allowing the use of a single device in both the RF and IF radio sections to save board space.

The DSAs provide many additional features, including on-board CMOS logic which facilitates 2.75V control, and a high-α state at power-up (PUP). The devices are available in the compact, RoHS-compliant QFN 32-lead package (5mm x 5mm x 0.85mm).