RF & Microwave

Northrop Grumman and Seatrec have been announced as winners of an Explorer Prize sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States. The competition sought to encourage innovative technology in marine renewable energy, to enable “more persistent and pervasive ocean observing”. The two companies together submitted the “Mission Unlimited UUV ...

Rutronik UK now offers the nRF21540 2.4GHz RF front end module from Nordic Semiconductor. The range extender can be combined with the company’s nRF52 and nRF53 series multi-protocol wireless SoCs, or other radios, to extend range. There is an integrated power amplifier for output and the low noise amplifier for input to minimise external components. It can be combined with ...

Renesas has cut quiescent consumption in its latest 1.8 to 5.0GHz 39.5dB RF amplifier, dubbed F1490. “F1490 is a second-generation high-gain, two-stage RF amplifier that covers key sub-6GHz 5G frequency bands,” According to the company. Operating from a 5V rail at up to 115°C TCB, it offers two selectable gain modes: 39.5dB or 35.5dB [2.6GHz], both with a typical quiescent ...

ADI and Intel are to collaborate on creating a flexible radio platform that addresses 5G network design challenges and will enable customers to scale their 5G networks more quickly and economically. The radio platform combines the advanced technology of ADI’s radio frequency (RF) transceivers with the high performance and low power of Intel Arria 10 Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) giving developers ...

Google and Apple update their Bluetooth-based pandemic tracing Exposure Notifications System, following feedback from early implementations by health authorities tackling Covid-19.

Tower Semiconductor is using phase-change materials to make non-volatile RF switches – therefore consuming no power to hold open or closed suiting them to battery-powered IoT use. “This switch technology demonstrates a figure-of-merit Ron x Coff <10fs,” according to the company. “The switch performs over frequencies spanning MHz to all frequency bands discussed for 5G, and further into the mmWave.” ...

Analog Devices has revealed the first product in a series of wide dynamic range RF transceivers – receiver dynamic range is -150dBc/Hz. The 30MHz to 6GHz part is called ADRV9002, and is aimed at mission-critical applications, such as first-responder radios, private LTE networks and satellites. “The difficulty for mission-critical networks to decipher complex signals increases as the radio spectrum becomes more ...

Maxim is aiming its latest MCY at coin cell powered Bluetooth Low Energy 5.2 wireless communication – 27.3μA/MHz operation is available at 3.3V when executing from cache, or 1.2µA at 3.3V in the lowest power mode. Called MAX32666, and part of the company’s Darwin family, it has dual 96MHz Arm Cortex-M4 cores, both with their own floating point unit, and Bluetooth ...

Ampleon has announced a 600W 915MHz RF LDMOS module for industrial, scientific and medical applications operating in the ISM band. Dubbed BPF0910H9X600, it operates across 902MHz to 928MHz and has 50Ω matching on input and output. Power gain is typically 19dB and harmonic suppression 27dBc. 600W is specified at 1dB compression. It needs a 50V power rail and claimed efficient is ...

Frontier is aiming at better-looking DAB+ radio products with a ‘Pro’ range of chips, modules and software. Its Kino 4-Pro chip has a larger memory than its earlier silicon, allowing features to be added without compromising performance. Siena-Pro (see image) is a module built around Kino 4-Pro. To ease migration, Kino 4-Pro and Siena-Pro are pin compatible with the company’s ...