VGA suits AGC circuits in wireless infrastructures
Maxim Integrated Products
MAX2063 VGA
The MAX2063 from Maxim Integrated Products is a fully programmable, multistate, dual-channel, digital IF/RF variable-gain amplifier (VGA) ideal for 'fast-attack' automatic gain control (AGC) circuits.
These circuits are found in all 2.5G, 3G and 4G wireless infrastructures, including GSM/Edge, CDMA, WCDMA, LTE and Wimax applications.
The device is said to be easy to control and delivers a combination of VGA performance, programmability and component integration.
The MAX2063 provides 'rapid-fire' gain selection for four customised attenuation states per path, fast 25ns digital switching, and very low digital VGA amplitude overshoot/undershoot.
The MAX2063 can serve as either an IF or RF all-purpose VGA, interfacing directly with 50ohm systems operating over the 50MHz to 1,000MHz frequency range.
The stages within each path have their own RF input and RF output, meaning the MAX2063 can be configured to optimise either noise figure (in other words, amplifier configured first within the cascade) or linearity (in other words, amplifier configured last).
In the latter configuration, the cascade yields a total gain range of 31dB, a maximum gain of 21.3dB, and a noise figure of 5.6dB.
The cascaded linearity offers +41dBm of OIP3, +56dBm of OIP2, and +19dBm of OPIdB performance.
In a receiver application, this linearity enhances the receiver's immunity to strong blocker signals.
Second- and third-order harmonic distortion (HD2 and HD3) is also limited to -54.8dBc and -72.9dBc, respectively.
This performance eases the filtering requirements of close-in harmonics and leads to simpler and more cost-effective filter designs, according to Maxim.
The device's rapid-fire gain-selection feature allows the user to quickly access any of four customised digital attenuation states without incurring the delays associated with reprogramming the device through the SPI bus.
The digital attenuator I/O is further reduced by a factor of either 5x or 2.5x (five control bits versus one or two, respectively) depending on the number of states desired.
The MAX2063 incorporates five circuit functions into a single, compact monolithic device.
When compared with an equivalent circuit using two MAX2066 VGAs, this dual VGA reduces the circuit's overall footprint by 32 per cent.
The MAX2063 is available in a lead-free 48-pin TQFN package.
Pin-for-pin compatible analogue and digital (MAX2062) and analogue-only (MAX2064) versions will also be available.
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