The Lab Brick® LDA-403 from Vaunix is a Solid-State Digital Attenuator that operates from 0.1 to 40 GHz. It has an attenuation range of 31.5 dB which can be controlled in 0.5 dB steps with a switching speed of 35 ns. This attenuator can handle an input power of 2 W and has an insertion loss of less than 9.5 dB. It is easily programmable for fixed attenuation, swept attenuation ramps, and fading profiles directly from the Graphical User Interface (GUI) or WebUI provided by Vaunix. Users can also develop their own interface with LabVIEW drivers, Windows API DLL files, Linux drivers, and Python examples.
The LDA-403 has both USB and Ethernet interfaces. The USB port uses a native HID interface to avoid the difficulties inherent in using older serial or IEEE-488 interfaces implemented over USB. It requires a DC supply of 5 V (over USB) and consumes 100 mA of current. This attenuator is available in a module that measures 108.5 x 50.0 x 21.8 mm with 2.92 mm (female) connectors. It is suitable for use in Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi 6E, 4G, 5G, LTE, DVB, microwave radio fading simulators, engineering/production test labs, and automated test equipment (ATE).
