Peregrine Semiconductor has introduced a new monolithic 100-watt power limiter, based on their UltraCMOS SOI Technology. The PE45361 is the next generation in Peregrine’s power limiter product family. It builds on the success of the 50-watt UltraCMOS power limiters and adds higher pulsed power handling, a lower limiting threshold and positive threshold control. UltraCMOS power limiters provide a monolithic alternative to discrete, PIN-diode limiters based on gallium-arsenide (GaAs) technology and protect devices against excessive RF power, intentional jamming and ESD events. It delivers reliable and repeatable power protection to sensitive low-noise receivers for test-and-measurement equipment and wireless-infrastructure transceivers.
Compared to PIN diodes, UltraCMOS power limiters provide a 10 to 100x improvement in response-and-recovery time, deliver 10 to 40 dB linearity (IIP3) improvement and offer a 20x improvement in ESD protection. UltraCMOS power limiters also require 8x less board space than that required by conventional PIN-diode solutions. Finally, the limiting threshold can be adjusted through a low current voltage control pin (VCTRL), eliminating the need for external components such as DC blocking capacitors, RF choke inductors and bias resistors.
Like other UltraCMOS power limiters, the PE45361 features two operating modes - power limiting and power reflecting - to maximize performance and flexibility. These modes can be selected through the programmable VCTRL pin. In power-limiting mode, the device is invisible to the load. When the incoming RF signal power exceeds the limiting threshold set through the VCTRLpin, the device limits the input RF power. The Power-reflecting mode is used in more extreme conditions, where the device reflects most of the incident power back to the source.
Features, Packaging, Price and Availability
Covering a wide frequency range from 10 MHz to 6 GHz, the PE45361 power limiter provides exceptional power protection for high performance, power-limiting applications. It can handle high pulsed power up to 50 dBm and 100 watts, has an adjustable limiting threshold from 5 dBm to 13 dBm and a positive threshold control from 0 to 0.3 volts. The PE45361 delivers a low insertion loss of 0.95 dB at 6 GHz and high return loss of 15 dB at 6 GHz. With a fast response time of 1 nanosecond and a speedy recovery time of 20 nanoseconds, it exhibits high linearity of 37 dBm IIP3 and excellent ESD protection of 3 kV HBM. Samples and evaluation kits are available now.
