News: Microelectronics
28 September 2022
pSemi’s 5G mmWave switch reaches volume production
Murata company pSemi Corp of San Diego, CA, USA – a fabless provider of radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) – has announced the production readiness of a new single-pole four-throw (SP4T) switch targeted at wideband and high-frequency applications up to 67GHz.
Claimed to be an industry-first, the compact and energy-efficient switch is designed to enhance 5G millimetre-wave (mmWave) systems and short-range connectivity. Offering best-in-class insertion loss, linearity, switching time and power handling for frequencies up to 67GHz, the PE42545 is part of a family of mmWave switches that can help designers simplify layouts and improve overall system efficiency in test & measurement, wireless infrastructure, non-terrestrial networks and point-to-point communication applications.
“As commercial mmWave deployment accelerates, our customers need high-performance switches that are broadband, very low insertion loss and stellar return loss for a high-performing mmWave signal chain,” says Vikas Choudhary, VP of sales & marketing. “With more than 30 years of expertise in high-frequency semiconductor invention and manufacturing, pSemi provides high-performance, dependable mmWave solutions that our customers and partners can count on.”
Available in flip-chip die form, the PE42545 UltraCMOS SP4T switch is said to deliver the RF performance, reliability and size to meet challenging mmWave system designs from 9kHz to 67GHz. Specific properties are listed as:
- superior wideband coverage — best-in-class performance with a proprietary design technique delivering RF performance up to 67GHz;
- low latency — extremely fast switching for rapid transmit and receive data patterns in advanced communication schemes;
- power handling and linearity — the highest input P1dB and IP3, enabling high-data-rate transmission capability in wireless communications.
Test & measurement – a mmWave SP4T case study
With the test & measurement industry facing the unique challenge of needing to stay ahead of the 5G mmWave technology learning curve to deliver advanced testing solutions, equipment must support higher power handling, high linearity, low insertion loss and fast switching to efficiently pressure test scenarios up to 67GHz under extreme conditions.
For test & measurement designers seeking to simplify complex broadband designs, a single PE42545 SP4T can replace multiple SPDTs used in cascaded filter bank configurations to reduce space and offer band-select paths with less insertion loss. Having access to scalable and reliable components ensures that designers can easily adapt system designs to different band configurations as 3GPP standards evolve in 5G, 5G-Advanced and 6G, says pSemi.
