IDT Announces Digital Step Attenuator That Reduces Transient Ringing Up To 95 Percent in Cellular Base Station and Other Applications

IDT���s Glitch-Free DSA enables customers to simplify their software interface, improve reliability, and prevent damage to expensive sub-assemblies such as power amplifiers.

The IDT F1950 and F1951 are digital step attenuators optimized for the demanding requirements of base transceiver station (BTS) receive, transmit, and digital pre-distortion (DPD) paths. IDT’s innovative Glitch-Free technology eliminates attenuation setting overshoot (glitches) from the transmit and receive paths of cellular communication systems, while at the same time reducing insertion loss and improving distortion performance. This significantly simplifies the hardware and software interfaces within the BTS, reducing cost and minimizing overhead. The extremely low IM3 distortion improves DPD path performance, enabling better transmitter spectral mask compliance and lower power consumption. The IDT F1950 (7-bit) and F1951 (6-bit) DSAs expand IDT’s comprehensive wireless communications portfolio, which includes RF mixers, variable gain amplifiers (VGAs), RapidIO serial switching, industry-leading timing, data conversion and data compression products.

“IDT’s new DSAs are another key building block of the communications signal chain that our customers are demanding,” said Tom Sparkman, vice president and general manager of the Communications Division at IDT. “Competing DSAs can glitch up to 10 dB during transitions of the MSB, while IDT’s Glitch-Free DSAs limit glitches to less than 0.5 dB – a significant performance advantage for our customers. In addition, our large attenuation range and high resolution gives customers the flexibility needed to service all the most popular wireless platforms. These latest products enhance an innovative portfolio of wireless communications solutions that is gaining strong traction in the marketplace.”

The IDT F1950 and F1951 operate from 100 MHz to 4000 MHz, and can communicate via a parallel or serial interface. The devices are ideal for setting the power level in 4G long-term evolution (LTE), time-division duplexing (TDD), wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), extended global system for mobile communications (EGSM) and other popular systems. The DSAs feature very low insertion loss (< 1.3 dB at 2 GHz) and are extremely accurate (< 0.2 dB over temperature), allowing for improved sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the receiver path.

Pricing and Availability
The IDT F1950 and F1951 are in production and sampling to qualified customers. They are available in a 4 mm x 4 mm 24-pin QFN package.