Crane Aerospace & Electronics Microwave Solutions Ku-Band Iso-Divider product line is designed for use in satellite applications. The Iso-Divider represents a marriage of the company’s heritage space passive and space ferrite products. This unit combines the functions of high performance power dividers with ferrite isolators to provide a high isolation power divider solution, making the external isolators redundant, for satellite receiver applications, without introducing complex switch-based solutions. Integration of the two functions into a single package provides enhanced product reliability due to fewer external components, interconnects and transitions. Additionally, marrying the power divider and isolators in the same package allows the performance of the integrated unit to be carefully matched for better overall performance. The integration saves weight, and reduces external assembly and additional screening cost.
Crane has been able to achieve the full range of 10.7 to 14.8 GHz isolator performance while simultaneously maintaining excellent insertion loss. In the past, for optimum loss performance, this band has typically been broken into two segments. With over 20 years of experience designing and manufacturing both space qualified passive components and isolators, Crane successfully brings this product to the market.
Due to the integrated unit design being optimized, performance for insertion loss is held at 1.8 dB maximum. If separate components were utilized for the function, this performance would be over 2 dB. This provides a great improvement in receiver sensitivity for the overall system. Because of the unit integration, phase balance of ±5° maximum is maintained as well.
Future plans are for this product line to offer Iso-Dividers and Iso-Combiners in various configurations (4, 6, 8 ports). These versions will be developed and released as market demand is validated.
Crane Aerospace & Electronics Microwave Solutions,
Chandler, AZ
(480) 940-1655,
www.craneae.com/mw