Peregrine’s new SP5T RF switch offers high isolation for infrastructure apps

2010 International Microwave Symposium, SAN DIEGO, USA: Peregrine Semiconductor Corp., a leading supplier of high- performance RF CMOS and mixed-signal communications ICs, announced the new PE42451 SP5T (single pole five throw) RF switch.

The newest IC in the RF switch portfolio, designed on Peregrine’s UltraCMOS silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) process technology, delivers exceptional isolation of >50 dB, providing an ideal alternative to switch matrix designs in demanding applications such as communications infrastructure and point-to-point radios.

The HaRP-enhanced 50-Ohm switch features five symmetric, absorptive RF ports. On-chip CMOS decode logic facilitates a three-pin low-voltage CMOS control interface and an optional external Vss feature (VssEXT).

In wireless infrastructure applications, the SP5T design allows up to four power amplifiers to share a common Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) feedback receiver path with an additional RF path for calibration, enabling a single, low-distortion, high-isolation switch to replace multiple SPDT switches.

“Wireless infrastructure equipment manufacturers no longer need to build costly SPDT-based switch matrices to achieve their high isolation switching needs,” said Mark Schrepferman, director of marketing for High-Performance Solutions business unit at Peregrine. “Being able to reduce component count and cost is an ideal solution for today’s high-performance infrastructure applications,” he added.

The new absorptive switch delivers market-leading RF performance across a frequency range of 450 MHz to 4 GHz: IIP3 of +58 dBm, IIP2 of +95 dBm, and Insertion Loss of 1.6 dB (450 MHz). The switch handles maximum +33 dBm input power (across the range) with world-class ESD tolerance of 3.5 kV HBM.

The PE42451, packaged in the 24-lead 4mm x 4mm QFN, is available in volume today and is priced at $2.20 each (100K units).