Microsemi has announced the availability of a series of new plastic packaged PIN diode control products, leveraging the company’s 50-year history supplying PIN diode products for challenging RF power, small signal switching and receiver power limiting functions. The new devices are highly cost competitive and can provide higher RF functionality, enabling defense, aerospace and medical customers to drive down bill of materials (BOM) costs with low risk and little sacrifice to performance.
Engineers developing Test and measurement, communication radio, radar and MRI products all require an increased level of functional integration coupled with form factor reduction, which is consequently driving the need for PIN diode switches with higher density, functionality and performance. The new PIN diode switches are both integrated and compact in surface mount plastic packaged formats which further enables superior RF performance.
The new product families, all RoHS-compliant, include:
MPS4101-6LP, a single pole single throw (SPST) PIN switch with a 3mm QFN-packaged series/shunt element offering wide-band, low-loss and high-isolation performance.
MMP4400, a series of five high-voltage, high-power PIN diode devices in plastic surface mount technology (SMT) packages with high stability and reliability, as well as low thermal resistance, high shunt isolation and low distortion.
GC4701-6LP, control devices with a SMT PIN limiter element, providing a specially processed PIN diode packaged in a convenient, low-cost plastic outline suitable for standard or co-planar microstrip circuits that comes in a 1.6mm QFN package and offer low insertion loss, low threshold power and high isolation.
MML4400, a series of fast surface mount MRI protection diodes offering protection from high-RF energy fields and enabling passive switching of surface-coil detuning and blocking circuits. The devices offer an anti-parallel option (unconnected pairs) in addition to low capacitance and conductance.
Microsemi’s new devices are designed to support the company’s cross-selling opportunities alongside existing products into a variety of aerospace, defense and industrial applications such as test and measurement, MRI equipment, electronic warfare and radar.
Specific examples for each new device include:
MPS4101-6LP SPST PIN switch: receiver/transmitter and filter switching, receiver protection, attenuators in electronic warfare (EW) systems, channel switching in high linearity microwave radios, filter switching and receiver protection in military and land mobile radios.
MMP4400 series: receiver/transmitter and filter switching, receiver protection, attenuators in EW systems, channel switching in high linearity microwave radios, receiver protection in military and commercial radar, channel switching in very small aperture terminal (VSAT) and satellite communication (SATCOM) applications, filter switching and receiver protection in military and land mobile radios.
GC4701-LP diode limiter: RF bench-top and RF portable instrumentation, receiver/transmitter and filter switching, receiver protection, attenuators in EW systems, channel switching in high linearity microwave radios, receiver protection in military and commercial radar, channel switching in VSAT/SATCOM applications, filter switching and receiver protection in military and land mobile radios.
MML4400 series fast surface mount MRI protection diodes: high-speed detune elements for patient protection in MRI equipment.
According to a recent study by Global Industry Analysts the RF and microwave diode market is projected to reach $1.34 billion by 2020. Microsemi's newly launched PIN diode families are ideal for these growing markets, as they combine lower cost surface mount packaging, fast switching and high continuous wave (CW) power handling capability, without sacrificing overall RF performance specifications.
Microsemi’s series of new plastic packaged PIN diode control products are available now.
