RF industry’s first monolithic, 50W power limiters

“Peregrine is excited to deliver the industry’s first monolithic power limiters – UltraCMOS PE45140 and PE45450 – today,” says Kinana Hussain, senior marketing manager at Peregrine. “Because we were able to architect the entire solution onto a single chip, Peregrine’s programmable power limiters offer unique flexibility and unprecedented, robust RF protection to designers of test-and-measurement equipment, LMRs, wireless-infrastructure devices and military and radar systems.”

Peregrine designed the UltraCMOS PE45140 to accommodate the frequency ranges needed in military, LMR and radar applications. Specifically, this power limiter can protect RF front ends and low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) in LMRs; tactical radio receivers from intentional jammers in military warfare; and transceiver (TRX) modules in radiolocation, shipborne and air-traffic-control (ATC) radar systems. Designed for higher frequency ranges, the PE45450 can protect RF ports in test-and-measurement equipment and RF receivers in wireless-infrastructure equipment.

Both power limiters feature:
•    High maximum power handling up to 50 W
•    Form factor as much as eight times smaller than PIN diode solutions
•    Greater than 40 dB linearity (IIP3) improvement over PIN diode solutions
•    Fast response-and-recovery time of less than one nanosecond
•    Adjustable limiting threshold starting as low as +22 dBm and reaching as high as +35 dBm
•    Superior ESD ratings as high as 8 kV HBM
•    Dual-mode operation (power-limiting mode and power-reflecting mode)

Peregrine’s programmable power limiters features two operating modes: power limiting and power reflecting. These modes can be selected through a low current, analog voltage on the control pin (VCTRL). In the power-limiting mode, the device is invisible to the load, and it features very low insertion loss and high linearity. When the incoming RF-signal power exceeds the limiting threshold set through the VCTRL pin, the device limits the input RF power. In the power-reflecting mode, the device reflects most of the incident power back to the source. The power-reflecting mode also uses an external power detector to sample the input RF power and toggle the VCTRL pin from power-limiting to power-reflecting mode for maximum protection. These power limiters also protect RF ports in unpowered or unbiased conditions.

Peregrine’s PE45140 and PE45450 feature a wide frequency range from 20 MHz to 2 GHz, and 9 KHz to 6 GHz respectively. Both power limiters feature fast response-and-recovery time of less than 1 nanosecond and protect systems from RF power spikes and surges in harsh environments. The power limiters’ high ESD ratings of up to 8 KV (HBM) protect RF ports from ESD events and enable the devices to operate as ESD clamps. Because PE45140 and PE45450 do not need additional external components, such as DC blocking capacitors, RF choke inductors and bias resistors, these power limiters reduce the overall power-limiting-function footprint and BOM costs. Available now in a compact 12-lead 3x3mm QFN package, PE45140 costs $6.90 each in 10K quantity orders and PE45450 costs $7.80 each in 10K quantity orders. Evaluation kit boards are $130 each.