Vector modulator

Hittite Microwave has introduced a high dynamic range vector modulator RFIC, suitable for wireless infrastructure applications from 1800-2200 MHz.

The HMC500LP3 is designed for distortion cancellation applications such as RF pre-distortion and feed-forward, as well as RF cancellation, beam forming and amplitude/phase correction applications.

The I&Q ports can be used to continuously vary the phase and amplitude of an RF signal by up to 360° and 40 dB, while supporting a 3 dB modulation bandwidth of 150 MHz.

The device delivers +33 dBm of input IP3 and an output noise of -162 dBm/Hz, which remains constant across the entire gain control range.

The device is housed in a compact 3 x 3 mm (LP3) surface mount QFN package, and requires no external components.