Peregrine Ships True DC Switch
UltraCMOS chip integrates RF, digital and analogue to preserve signal Integrity from DC to 8GHz
Peregrine Semiconductor, founder of RF SOI (silicon on insulator), has announced the availability of the UltraCMOS PE42020, claimed to be the industry's first and only RF integrated switch to operate at true DC, zero Hz.
"For the first time, an integrated RF switch can operate at DC and truly cover the signal over the entire frequency spectrum," says Kinana Hussain, Peregrine's senior manager of marketing.
"Until now, only mechanical relays and MEMS switches allowed DC pass through, and these products are plagued with reliability issues and lack of integration. Today's release of the UltraCMOS PE42020 is another example of Peregrine solving the RF industry's biggest challenges."
Peregrine's UltraCMOS SoI products are challenging GaAs transistors particularly in mobile phone applications: its switches have already driven the demise of GaAs pHEMTs, and the technology is competing with the GaAs HBTs used in power amplifiers
The True DC RF switch integrates high performance RF switching, analogue DC tracking and digital control logic and impedance control on a single chip. By integrating these functions, RF engineers gain many benefits, says Peregrine, including greater system capability, improved performance, a smaller form factor, reliability and flexibility.
Peregrine's PE42020 is a single-pole double throw (SPDT) True DC RF switch that supports a wide frequency range from DC (zero Hz) through 8000 MHz. A configurable 50Ω absorptive or open reflective switch, PE42020 exhibits high power handling of 30 dBm at 0Hz and 36 dBm at 8GHz.
It has a linearity of 62dBm IIP3, total harmonic distortion (THD) of -84dBc and a power 0.1dB compression point of 38dBm at 8GHz. The PE42020 features a switching time of 10 microseconds, a settling time of 35µs and an ESD rating of 1000V HBM on all pins.
In addition, it can handle DC or AC peak voltages in the range of +10V to -10V on the RF ports and DC current through RF active ports of up to 80 mA, representing a first for this type of switch.
