» "Perhaps they called it
Dolphin because it is smart, or it can do tricks that similar creatures
cannot," says eeProductCenter's Janine Love referring to the UART
chipset from Texas Instruments that took top honors in this category.
(1) TEXAS INSTRUMENTS Chipset automates wireless links eeProductCenter's Janine Love says:
"Perhaps they called it Dolphin because it is smart, or it can do
tricks that similar creatures cannot. Whatever the reason, the High
Performance Linear (HPL) group at Texas Instruments (TI) turned its
attention to simplifying applications development for
frequency-hopping, spread spectrum (FHSS) 915-MHz systems with its
Dolphin wireless universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART)
chipset.
The two-chip set consists of the TRF6903 RF transmitter and the DBB03
digital baseband ASIC. The most interesting part of the story rests
with the baseband ASIC, which has on-board firmware fixed in ROM that
incorporates the algorithms for frequency hopping and clock recovery.
"It effectively does all of the housekeeping and control of the RF
transceiver," explains Dave Wilson, manager for TI's HPL group. "So,
instead of doing extensive digital baseband processing, designers
simply need to write to a few registers to quickly set up the chips." " Readers say: » "100Kbps would be better for my application to reduce latency."
» "This is a nice looking solution for wireless communication in embedded applications."
USABILITY RANK: 1
(2) MICROTUNE Single-chip tuner enables broadcast TV in both European and North American handsets eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "
Tuning in TV signals for mobile handsets is significantly different
than tuning in voice and data packets. While cellular phone receivers
single out narrowband signals, TV tuners need to receive across a wider
band, filter out unwanted interference, and not consume a lot of power.
For a stationary TV, a 1 W tuner is considered a low-power device. For
mobile TV, power consumption would have to be taken down nearly two
orders of magnitude.
Enter Microtune. This is a company that was founded on the technology
for silicon TV tuners. They have been heavily involved with European
manufacturers developing products for DVB-T, the European digital TV
standard, and they are deep in the trenches with manufacturers working
on TV systems for use in automobiles. These automotive systems face
similar challenges to mobile handset TVs, including handling
interference and receiving signals while in motion. But the mobile
handset offered additional challenges, such as overcoming the
interference of the nearby power amplifier, and not draining the
handset battery.
" Readers say: » "Lower power is a good thing for mixed hybrid designs."
» "A good potential future product."
» "Significant analog accomplishment - likely to be used in handsets."
USABILITY RANK: 6
(3) ST MICROELECTRONICS Single RF synthesizer services three different global bands eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "
Designers of wireless base stations may find the new STW81100 device
from STMicroelectronics to be just what they are looking for to
simplify their designs for use in worldwide markets. Integrating an
integer-N multiband RF synthesizer with two relevant voltage controlled
oscillators (VCOs), this single device can be configured to span 820 to
1100 MHz, 1640 to 2200 MHz, or 3280 to 4400 MHz. Traditionally, base
stations have been designed using discrete VCOs and phase locked loop
(PLL) circuits with significant power and board space requirements. As
base stations shrink in size and are being deployed in more demanding
environments, size and power requirements are growing in importance. " Readers say: » "Looks like a great product that should have applications in many communications systems."
» "More info,mation about its reliablity in differing use environments would help."
» "Much smaller than multichip VCO/PLL solutions, but the current may be a bit much for a handset."
» "No Fractional N option."
» "Very use full device for RF engineers."
» "Phase noise is not very impressive."
» "Has especially good phase noise > 1MHz from carrier."
USABILITY RANK: 2
(4) ANADIGM Chipset offers user-selectable parameters for RFID tag readers eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "
RFID system design is complicated by the dynamic nature of the market
and varying specifications around the globe. To make it simpler,
designers at Anadigm have come up with an RFID chipset, known as the
RangeMaster, that offers user-selectable parameters, including center
frequency, variable gain, and lower and upper sub-carrier frequencies.
There is a real need for flexibility in RFID design because the specs
are still changing, and, even within a single specification, the RFID
tags can be requested to signal back at different frequencies. For
instance, RFID tags working within the EPC Global Gen 2 specification
can be asked to signal back at a frequency ranging from 40 kHz up to
620 kHz. The challenge for designers was that a standard DSP + a fixed
analog filter could not get the job done. In response, the design team
at Anadigm came up with its RangeMaster two-chip set for RFID tag
readers.
" Readers say: » "With RFID heating up,
the need for reader solutions is going to go through the roof. The 5
volt limitation is a bit of a problem. The built in state machine may
make it less flexible than would be desirable."
USABILITY RANK: 5
(5) SILICON LABORATORIES FM tuner simplifies radios in portable devices eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "
Good performance, defined in terms of audio quality, sensitivity to
weak signals, good rejection, and resistance to interference in strong
signal environments, is what the designers at Silicon Labs (Austin, TX)
targeted when designing the Si4700/01 family of FM broadcast radio
tuners. And, because they are targeting the portable market, they also
focused on size and integration. The resulting tuners connect directly
to the +2.7 to +5.5 VDC power source, and they integrate a supply
regulator, audio filters, antenna matching circuitry, and a voltage
controlled oscillator.
" Readers say: » "Extended frequency
response specs and performance would be useful for non-broadcast
applications."
» "They work very well."
» "What is the Freqency Response?"
» "I read about this product several months ago. At that time, the only
way to get a datasheet was by first completing an NDA. I found this to
be onerous and for no particular reason. If it's so difficult to get a
datasheet, I can only imagine how challenging it will be to get samples
and/or order components." USABILITY RANK: 3
(6) ANALOG DEVICES Tiny log amp spans 1 MHz to 10 GHz eeProductCenter's Janine Love says:
"Analog Devices has released the industry's first RF logarithmic
detector/controller that accurately measures the power of radio signals
from 1 MHz to 10 GHz, covering all cellular standards and a variety of
wireless infrastructure and broadband wireless applications. In
addition, the device is designed for fast output response time (5 ns),
small size (housed in a 2 x 3 mm package), and low-power consumption
(consuming only 20 mA of current and less than 1 mW when disabled) for
portable applications. The device offers accurate RF measurement of
better than +/- 1 dB over a dynamic range of more than 50 dB, and can
function as a power controller when its outputs are used to adjust a
power amplifier (PA) or a variable-gain amplifier (VGA). The 1 MHz to
10 GHz operating frequency range supports all cellular standards (GSM,
CDMA, W-CDMA and TD-SCDMA), broadband wireless standards (802.16,
WiMAX, WiBro), and proprietary systems that operate in a variety of
frequency bands.
" Readers say: » "Seems like a great product with use from cell phones to ham radio!"
» "Eager to use it!" USABILITY RANK: 4
(7) SIGE SEMICONDUCTOR WiMAX chipset links global communities eeProductCenter's Janine Love says:
"High throughput, long range, immunity to interference, and small size
are high on the minds of designers looking for transceiver designs to
drop in to their WiMAX systems. In response, the designers at SiGe
Semiconductor sought to deliver a low noise figure and phase noise (for
throughput and range), high linearity (for immunity to interference),
and low current and high integration (for a small form factor). The
result is the SE7051 IF transceiver, the SE7351L 3.5 GHz RF
transceiver, the SE7251L 2.5 GHz RF transceiver, and the SE7380L
switch. " Readers say: » "Low phase noise is
critical for higher modulations, so it would be a great fit in our
product. The claim for immunity to interference needs to be tested out
though." USABILITY RANK: 8
(8) FAIRCHILD SEMICONDUCTOR W-CDMA gets a boost from dual-band power amplifier module eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "
Keeping up with changing and evolving specifications and minimizing
design cycles are common challenges for RF and wireless design
engineers. In response, Fairchild Semiconductor has raised the bar on
functionality and size for W-CDMA power amplifiers with its RMPA2265 PA
module.
"This is one of the first dual-band W-CDMA PAs that offers a 3 x 3 mm
footprint," observes Sanjiv Shah, director, marketing for the RF Group
at Fairchild. With an eye to the international market, the team
designed the product to satisfy both UMTS bands, Band 1 (which is
primarily used in Europe) 1920-1980 MHz, and Band 2 1850-1910 MHz.
"With this approach, manufacturers can design a generic phone board for
either market, reduce design time, and minimize inventory," he adds.
" Readers say: » "... A very small number of people actually have purchase decision authority for this kind of product."
» "Does not have multiple gain modes."
USABILITY RANK: 7
(9) SST COMMUNICATIONS PAs boost battery-powered WLAN signals eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "SST
Communications introduced the SST12LP14A power amplifier (PA) for
2.4-GHz 802.11b/g and the SST11LP11 PA for 5-GHz 802.11a WLAN systems.
The devices are optimized for power consumption, and feature on-chip
power detectors.
When configured for high-efficiency operation, the SST12LP14A requires
a quiescent current (Icq) of 45 mA. It provides 29 dB gain and linear
output power of +17 dBm at Icc of 85 mA. Under high-power
configuration, the same device provides output power of +22 dBm at 210
mA for 802.11g and output power of +23 dBm at 240 mA for 802.11b
application, respectively. The device features approximately 4-percent
added EVM (error vector magnitude) at +22 dBm output power. The device
features a load-insensitive, on-chip power detector, eliminating the
need for an off-chip Schottky diode detector with on-board directional
coupler. The power detection ranges from 0.6 to 1.8VDC to cover 0 to
+23 dBm output power with dB-wise linearization and high stability over
temperature (<ıı0.3 dB over 0 to 85degC), frequency (<ıı0.3 dB
across Channel 1 to 14), and output load (<ıı0.4 dB with a 2:1 VSWR
[voltage standing wave ratio] mismatch load at all angles). " Readers say: USABILITY RANK: 10
(10) LINEAR TECHNOLOGY Mixer streamlines 3G basestation receiver design eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "The
LT5527 is an active downconverting RF mixer from Linear Technology that
is designed to significantly reduce the cost and simplify the design of
3G cellular basestations. Featuring a frequency range of 400 MHz to 3.7
GHz, it is well suited for applications in cellular, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA
and UMTS infrastructure, GSM900/GSM1800/GSM1900 infrastructure,
900MHz/2.4GHz/3.5GHz WLAN, MMDS, WiMAX, high linearity downmixer
applications, and high-signal-level downmixers for multi-carrier
wireless infrastructure.
The device integrates a high-speed differential local oscillator (LO)
buffer amplifier, a double-balanced mixer, and broadband integrated
transformers. It is optimized for high linearity. At 1.9 GHz, the input
third order intercept point (IIP3) is +23.5 dBm; conversion gain is
specified at 2.3 dB; and noise figure is held to 12.5 dB. At 900 MHz,
the IIP3 is +24.5 dBm; conversion gain is specified at 3.2 dB; and
noise figure is held to 11.6 dB. " Readers say: » "The LO return loss should be improved."
USABILITY RANK: 9
