The PE43610 from pSemi is a 6-Bit Digital Step Attenuator that operates from 9 kHz to 13 GHz. It has an attenuation range from 0-31.5 dB with a step size of 0.5 dB. This DSA features glitch-free attenuation state transitions and has a control voltage of 1.8 V with an optional VSS_EXT bypass mode to improve spurious performance, making this device ideal for test and measurement, point-to-point communication systems, and very small aperture terminals (VSAT). It provides an integrated digital control interface that supports both serial and parallel programming of the attenuation. This attenuator is capable of maintaining 0.5 dB and 1 dB monotonicity through 13 GHz bandwidth and doesn’t require any external blocking capacitors on the RF ports.
The PE43610 is manufactured on pSemi’s UltraCMOS process, a patented variation of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology on a sapphire substrate, offering the performance of GaAs with the economy and integration of conventional CMOS. It is available in a 4 x 4 mm 24-lead LGA package.
