Peregrine Semiconductor has introduced the industry’s first RF SOI switch to operate up to 40 GHz. The UltraCMOS® PE42524 switch significantly extends Peregrine’s high-frequency portfolio into frequencies previously dominated by gallium arsenide (GaAs) technology. As an alternative to GaAs-based solutions, the PE42524 features high reliability and performance advantages in linearity, isolation, settling time and ESD protection. These attributes make the switch ideal for test-and-measurement, microwave-backhaul, radar and military communications devices.
Peregrine’s high-frequency switch portfolio, includes 13 GHz, 18 GHz, 26.5 GHz and now 40 GHz products, manufactured on their UltraCMOS technology, a patented variation of SOI technology on a sapphire substrate. This sapphire substrate offers several key benefits significant to high-frequency design. Sapphire has a loss tangent that is 10 times better than bulk CMOS and three times better than GaAs. As an ultra high-resistivity substrate, sapphire provides high isolation and minimizes parasitic capacitances. The sapphire substrate eliminates many substrate-coupling effects, common in silicon-based substrates, offering RF system engineers exceptional levels of linearity and power handling performance. Their UltraCMOS technology enables their high-frequency components, such as the PE42524, to reach performance levels previously considered unattainable in RF SOI.
PE42524 Product Information
The PE42524 is a single-pole double-throw (SPDT) RF switch die that supports a wide frequency range from 10 MHz to 40 GHz. It delivers exceptionally high port-to-port isolation, low insertion loss and excellent linearity. The switch exhibits 47 dB isolation and 2.2 dB insertion loss at 30 GHz, as well as 50 dBm IIP3 at 13.5 GHz. The PE42524 has a fast switching time of 225 nanoseconds, a fast settling time of 840 nanoseconds and a high ESD rating of 2000V HBM on all pins. Unlike GaAs solutions, no blocking capacitors are required if DC voltage is not present on the RF ports. The PE42524 is available as a flip-chip die with 500 microns bump pitch, which eliminates high-frequency performance variations due to bond wire length variances. Click here to see complete specs and download the datasheet.
Pricing and Availability
Samples, evaluation kits and volume-production parts are available now. Offered as a RoHS compliant, flip-chip die, the PE42524 is $40 each for 1K-quantity orders and $32.44 for 5K-quantity orders.
