Designer Kits

Hittite Microwave Corporation offers a product family of seven low cost 2, 3, and 5 Bit configurations; Digital Attenuator ICs. Offering unprecedented bandwidth from DC to 4 GHz, positive bias & control, and ± 0.2 to ± 0.5 dB typical accuracy. Excellent input IP3 performance of +44 to +54 dBm characterizes these attenuators, satisfying today's linearity requirements for Cellular, PCS, 3G, ISM, and Broadband Digital data systems.

The HMC306MS10 offers a least significant bit (LSB) step of 0.5 dB while maintaining a bit error of ±0.25 dB. Both the HMC273MS10 and the HMC307QS16G offer traditional 1 dB LSB steps with a maximum range of 31 dB. Occupying only 14.8 mm2 in a 10 lead MSOP package, the HMC273MS10 is the smallest 5 bit, 31 dB digital attenuator available today. The 2 Bit attenuators, HMC290 and HMC291, are available in plastic 6 lead SOT26 package.

All of the attenuators require only a single control voltage for each attenuator bit, minimizing logic interface and package lead count. A single positive bias supplied through an external 5K ohm resistor is utilized by all products except the negative bias HMC307QS16G. Control and bias currents for each are 100 to 250 µA typical.

The seven digital attenuator ICs are manufactured on a high volume production process, resulting in a low cost family of products with consistent performance. Standard fine lead pitch plastic packaging minimizes the footprint of each part from between 9 to 29.4 mm2.