Peregrine PE43711, PE43712 and PE43713 digital step attenuators

The PE43711, PE43712 and PE43713, from Peregrine Semiconductor, are 50 Ω, HaRP technology-enhanced, 7-bit RF digital step attenuators (DSAs) that support applications from 9 kHz to 6 GHz. They feature an integrated digital control interface for serial and parallel programming of the attenuation, including programming an initial attenuation state at power-up.

The DSAs also feature glitchless attenuation state transitions and support 1.8 V control voltage and an extended operating temperature range to 105°C, making them suitable for a range of broadband wireless applications, including 3G/4G wireless infrastructure, land mobile radio (LMR) systems and point-to-point communication systems. The PE43713 offers an optional VSS_EXT bypass mode to improve spurious performance, making it suitable for test and measurement.

The devices cover a 31.75 dB attenuation range in 0.25, 0.5 and 1 dB steps. They are capable of maintaining 0.25 dB monotonicity through 4 GHz, 0.5 dB monotonicity through 5 GHz and 1 dB monotonicity through 6 GHz. No external blocking capacitors are required if 0 VDC is present on the RF ports.

The DSAs are manufactured on Peregrine’s UltraCMOS process, a patented variation of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology on a sapphire substrate that offers good RF performance.