Peregrine Semiconductor boosts performance of T&M equipment with 13.5 GHz SPDT switch

SAN DIEGO, USA: Peregrine Semiconductor Corporation, a leading supplier of high-performance RF CMOS and mixed-signal communications ICs, announced the new PE42556 SPDT (single pole double throw) RF switch.

The PE42556, designed on Peregrine’s UltraCMOS silicon-on-sapphire process technology, features excellent broadband RF performance from 9 kHz up to 13.5 GHz without gate or phase lag and insertion loss drift, and ensures fast switch-settling time.

The HaRP-enhanced switch has best-in-class linearity, making it ideal for use in test and measurement applications including Automated Test Equipment (ATE) and general purpose test & measurement, RF/IF transceiver signal switching, filter bank switching and discrete DSA stages.

“Today’s test and measurement vendors face a classic chicken and egg problem: making more efficient ATE requires better RF performance, yet the RF integrated circuits (ICs) in development push the limits of today’s test equipment,” said Mark Schrepferman, product marketing director for commercial and industrial products.

“We’ve worked very closely with our customers to understand the limitations of today’s equipment, and to solve this challenge with the development of broadband switches that deliver the linearity, ultra-fast settling time, repeatability and overall performance required to reliably test next-generation RFICs,” he added.

The new PE42556, an absorptive switch, terminates the unused port to 50 Ohms and delivers an exceptional isolation of 26 dB at 13.5 GHz and IIP3 of +56 dBm. ESD tolerance is a market-leading 4.0 kV HBM on all ports.

Additional features include integrated CMOS control logic, driven by a single-pin, low-voltage CMOS control input with a user-defined logic table, as well as a logic-select pin that allows polarity to be inverted for back-to-back switching applications. This device complements Peregrine’s PE42552 SPDT specified from 9 kHz to 7.5 GHz.

The PE42556 is offered in a tiny flip chip package with a 400um bump pitch. The device is shipping to lead customers now, and is priced at $15.00 each in 5k unit volumes.