Peregrine Semiconductor Corp., founder of RF SOI (silicon on insulator) and pioneer of advanced RF solutions, announces it was honored with a 2015 Electronic Products “Product of the Year” award for its True DC RF switch. The UltraCMOS PE42020 is the industry’s first and only RF integrated switch to operate from DC (0 Hz) to 8 GHz.
“This ‘Product of the Year’ recognition highlights Peregrine’s willingness and ability to innovate,” says Jim Cable, CEO of Peregrine Semiconductor. “The True DC RF switch is yet another example of Peregrine accomplishing what others deemed impossible and achieving an industry first.”
The True DC RF switch, the PE42020, is a reliable alternative to problematic mechanical relays and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) in test-and-measurement (T&M) and automated-test-equipment (ATE) applications. The switch features high power handling and maintains excellent RF performance and linearity from DC through 8 GHz.
“Before the PE42020, RF engineers had no choice but to use MEMS or mechanical relays to operate at DC,” says Richard Comerford, editor of Electronic Products. “Despite these technologies’ problems with reliability, flexibility and size, no silicon vendor was previously able to provide RF switches in the lowest portion of the frequency spectrum: true DC, or 0 Hz. The PE42020 not only operates from DC all the way up to 8 GHz, but switches in 10 µs and settles in 35 µs—more than 150 times faster than most MEMS and mechanical-relay systems.”
The editors of Electronic Products—a leading trade publication for electronic design engineers—evaluated thousands of products launched in 2015. The winning products were selected on the basis of innovative design, significant advancement in technology or application and substantial achievement in price and performance. This year marks the 40th annual Electronic Products “Product of the Year” Awards.
The 2015 “Product of the Year” Awards were announced in the January 2016 issue of Electronic Products. Additionally, the winning products appear on the Electronic Products website: http://www.electronicproducts.com/ProductYear.aspx.