Product Focus
Passive Components
Soft ferrite sample kit
MMG has developed a sample kit that
includes a variety of soft ferrite core materials in toroid, balun and squaroid geometries.
MMG manufactures a full range of soft ferrite
cores in MnZn (manganese-zinc) and NiZn
(nickel-zinc) grades. The soft ferrite cores
in the sample kit are ideal for applications
involving RF mixers, splitters and couplers.
Along with RF applications, MMG’s materials
are specified for computer, telecommunications, industrial, consumer, medical, automotive and defense electronics applications. In
addition to the shapes, sizes and materials
offered in the sample kit, MMG will also
produce to customer specifications upon
request. Kits are available. Pricing for the
soft ferrite sample kit is $149 each. The
purchase price will be refunded upon the
placement of a purchase order within 12
months of a minimum value of $500.
MMG
(416) 251-2831
www.mmgca.com
Coplanar attenuators
State of the Art (SOTA), manufacturer
of military and high-reliability chip resistors, has added coplaner attenuators to its
high-frequency product line. Wire bondable
or solderable “0303” (0.030 in. x 0.030 in.
x 0.010 in.) coplaner balanced-T attenuators
are available on alumina or aluminum-nitride
(high-power) substrates. Constructed using
a high-stability thin-film resistor element,
46
704RFD31.indd 46
these devices are available with attenuation
values from 1 dB to 20 dB. They are suitable
for high-frequency applications up to 20 GHz.
Attenuation tolerance is less than ±0.5 dB to
12 GHz and ±1 dB to 20 GHz. VSWR is less
than 1.4:1 up to 20 GHz. Performance data
is available for chip mounting and for mounting on Rogers 4350 boards. Wire-bondable
versions have gold terminations and are
RoHS compliant. Solderable versions have
60/40 SnPb over a nickel barrier. Customerspecific applications can be accommodated,
including optional high-reliability screening or
custom testing. Pricing for the components is
less than $1.90 in production quantities.
State of the Art
(800) 458-3401
www.resistor.com
Thin-film chip inductors
working voltage of 350 V. The device is available in resistance values of 5.9 Ω, 11 Ω, 27 Ω,
68 Ω, and 270 Ω, with a tolerance of ±10%,
and TCRs to ±50 ppm/°C. Maximum operating temperature is +150 °C. IRC will also
produce devices outside these specifications to
meet customer requirements. Typical pricing
for the HSF Series resistors is approximately
$0.18 each in quantities of 10,000.
IRC
(828) 264-8861
www.irctt.com
Wire-bondable passives
BI Technologies Magnetic Components
Division offers a series of thin-film chip inductors. Designated the BTC series, the inductors
feature tight tolerances and are available in
0402 and 0603 package sizes. Applications
for the inductors include RFICs and WLAN
cards. The inductors exhibit stable inductance
values in high-frequency circuits and selfresonant frequencies controlled within 10%.
Absolute tolerance is to ±1% or ±0.1 nH, with
frequencies of 300 MHz for the 0603 package, and 500 MHz for the 0402 package. The
inductors are compatible with reflow and flow
soldering. Typical pricing for the BTC series
inductors is approximately $22 to $59 per
thousand pieces.
BI Technologies
(714) 447-2300
www.bitechnologies.com
Surge-robust resistor
Providing telecommunications design
engineers with a surface-mount device that
is less susceptible to surges, IRC Wire and
Film Technologies Division has certified its
HSF series resistor to meet or exceed GR1089
lightning strike specifications. The series resistor provides secondary lightning protection
for board-level telecom applications. They
feature a power rating of 1 W at 70 °C and a
www.rfdesign.com
IRC Advanced Film Division’s WBC
series consists of resistors, network arrays,
capacitors, multitap chip resistors, and divider
networks on silicon and ceramic. The wirebondable product offering includes the WBA
series of TaNFilm precision ceramic resistors;
the WBC series of TaNSil precision silicon
resistors; the WBC-CR series of Chromaxx
precision high-range silicon resistors; the
WBC-divider series of TaNSil precision
silicon voltage divider networks; the WBDNET series of TaNSil silicon resistor network
arrays; the WBC-CAP series of TaNCap wire
bondable chip capacitors; the WBC-RC series
of TaNSil chip resistors and capacitor circuits;
and the WBC-multitap series of TaNSil silicon multitap chip resistor networks. Pricing
for items in the series ranges from $0.80 to
$5.00, depending on device, in quantities of
1000 pieces.
IRC
(828) 264-8861
www.irctt.com
April 2007
4/13/2007 10:00:39 AM
RF Design
704RFD31.indd 47
www.rfdesign.com
47
4/13/2007 10:00:40 AM
Low-VSWR loads
Microlab/FXR has added two high-power
terminations to its TB series. The TB-70 (50
W) and the TB-75 (100 W) are available with
either N or 7-16 mm DIN, male or female connectors. These terminations meet the low-cost
needs of the wireless market across the whole
dc to 3 GHz band. Units have been designed
using solder-free mechanically stable connections and achieve a typical VSWR better than
1.10:1 across the whole frequency band. These
terminations are available for evaluation.
Microlab/FXR
(973) 386-9696
www.microlab.fxr.com
Low profile, rugged antenna
EMI T-filters
Syfer Technology’s range of compact,
panel-mounted T filters provide EMI protection in communications and microwave
modules. The first two families are the SFKKT
and SFAKT, featuring round or hexagonal
bodies, respectively. These feedthrough EMI
filters are smaller than previous versions.
They will particularly suit equipment where
panel space is limited. The SFKKT versions
with 4.6 mm pitching and screw-in heads are
specifically designed for high-density mounting. The T filters integrate two inductors and
one discoidal multilayer ceramic capacitor,
using C0G or X7R dielectric material. They
deliver capacitance values from 10 pF to
47 nF, with a maximum operating voltage of
500 Vdc, up to 6.8 nF.
The filter devices offer excellent insertion
loss performance up to full-rated voltage and
to the extremes of rated temperature (-55
o
C to 125 oC). They are designed primarily for circuits with a low-impedance source
and low-impedance load, such as dc power
lines. The SFKKT and SFAKT families are
available in volume.
Syfer Technology
+44 1603 723300
www.syfer.com
Double-balanced mixer
Orbcomm system users desiring better RF
performance, smaller size and improved product integrity, Laird Technologies is offering
a low profile, mechanically rugged, wideband
(VHS + GPS) bar-style antenna. Called
Orbcomm Phantom VG antenna, it offers field
diversity to improve RF performance and
measures only 2.2 inches high, 3.0 inches wide
and 12.5 inches long. Operating efficiently
across the Orbcomm bandwidth of 137 MHz
to 149 MHz, the antenna exhibits a VSWR of
less than 2:1 at the important band edges.
The antenna offers field diversity technology, which provides a full spherical radiation
pattern that overcomes nulls and gaps found
in a conventional whip-style antenna. This
leads to better connectivity and higher data
rates, in areas such as urban canyons and rural
drop-off areas.
It can be mounted vertically or horizontally,
using screw on bolts or adhesive padding
and is available with back or side cable exit
configurations. The RoHS compliant Orbcomm Phantom VG is mechanically rugged
and withstands tough environments including
resistance to almost all weather conditions
and the sun’s harsh UV rays. The product
is available and is less than $95 in small
quantities.
Laird Technologies
(314) 344-9333
www.lairdtech.com
48
704RFD31.indd 48
Link Microtek’s HMC141LH5 is a miniature passive double-balanced mixer housed
in a hermetic SMT leadless package that can
be used for upconverter or downconverter
applications from 7 GHz to 14 GHz. The
device is a passive diode/balun-type mixer
with an IF bandwidth of dc to 2 GHz. The
mixer can handle larger signal levels than
most active mixers due to a high third-order
intercept of 20 dBm. MMIC implementation
provides exceptional balance in the circuit,
resulting in high LO-to-RF and LO-to-IF
isolations (35 dB) and unit-to-unit consistency.
The HMC141LH5 allows the use of surfacemount manufacturing techniques and is suitable for high-reliability military, industrial
and space applications.
Link Microtek
+44 (0) 1256 355 771
www.linkmicrotek.com
Chip resistors
EMC surface-mount (CT) chip terminations and (CR) chip resistors are available as
0402 size surface-mount chip devices. The
CT0402D (1.14 mm x 0.64 mm) termination
achieves a power rating of 10 W and is rated
for frequency performance out to 18 GHz
and a maximum VSWR of 1.35:1. The 0402
case size resistor is available with frequency
performance out to 26.5 GHz. The CR0505D
resistor achieves a power rating of 40 W. The
CR1010D resistor is rated to 150 W. The
www.rfdesign.com
CT0505D offers power-handling capabilities
up to 40 W, while the CT1310D termination
operates up to 150 W. Mil-PRF-55342 highreliability fully tested devices are available
to increase reliability.
EMC Technology
(772) 286-9300
www.emct.com
Drop-in isolators
Renaissance Electronics’ R-series are
Ku- and X-band drop-in isolators. These
flange-mount units are suited for military,
satcom, space, intelligence, and air surveillance radar systems. Covering frequencies of
7.2 GHz to 8.4 GHz, 9.5 GHz to 10.5 GHz,
12.7 GHz to 14.5 GHz, and 14.0 GHz to
15.5 GHz, these temperature-stable devices
have typical loss of less than 0.4 dB and return
loss and isolation of greater than 20 dB in
an industry-standard footprint. For more
information, visit www.recrseries.com.
Renaissance Electronics
(978) 772-7774
www.rec-usa.com
High-directivity coupler
AVX’s integrated thin-film, high-directivity coupler provides a directivity of 20 dB
to 27 dB and ±0.5 dB coupling factor tolerance. Based on the proprietary RFAP thinfilm technology, the CP0402P series improves
PA gain control in high-frequency applications such as cellular and WiMax wireless
system transmitters. The coupler is offered
in a variety of frequency bands and can be
used for power control of transmitters in
cellular, GPS and wireless communications.
Designed for reliable automatic assembly,
the CPO402P series coupler is available in a
land grid array (LGA) termination, providing
a low profile, low parasitics and self-alignment
during reflow.
AVX
(843) 448-9411
www.avx.com
Ceramic balun
Mini-Circuits’ new model NCS4-272+ is a low-cost
miniature 50  RF transformer
designed for WLAN, WiMAX/WiBRO,
MMD and radar applications. It uses LTCC
construction and offers a frequency range
of 2.40 GHz to 2.70 GHz with low phase
unbalance of 5.0, and typical amplitude unbalance of 0.3 dB. It measure only 0.079 in. x
0.049 in. x 0.033 in. and is aqueous washable.
RoHS compliant in accordance with EU
Directive (2002/95/EC). In stock, it costs
$1.99 each, in quantities of 10-49.
Mini-Circuits
(718) 934-4500
www.minicircuits.com
April 2007
4/13/2007 10:00:40 AM