Avnet is now shipping three ultra linear tunable RF filters and two wideband RF switches from Otava, a fabless mmWave and mixed-signal IC design company best known for developing its OTBF103 mmWave beamformer IC. Both the filters and the switches are currently available as small form factor devices, which allows for maximum layout efficiency. Avnet is also offering Otava’s switch evaluation boards, which enable engineers to quickly assess the device’s performance and simplify prototyping and verification. To showcase the tunable RF filters in frequency-agile sub-6 GHz applications, Avnet is also developing a tunable filters daughter-card that will plug into a ZCU208 or ZCU216 Xilinx Zynq® UltraScale+™ RFSoC development board.

“Otava’s new tunable filters and mmW switches will provide designers with more high-performance solutions in the mmWave arena, where every component specification can make a difference in the overall system performance.” said Jim Beneke, vice president of Engineering and Technology, Avnet. “Their compact form factor, low insertion loss, and the wide band coverage allows for adoption in a range of systems including 5G and LEO satcom applications.”

“We are extremely excited to announce that Otava’s ultra-wideband switches and tunable filters are now available through Avnet.  They will serve as key components that are compatible with many existing platforms, including those in the 5G market,” said Otava Co-Founder and Vice President of Engineering, Wen Zheng. “The superior performance and flexibility of our products simplify architecture and reduce cost in many systems that are in need of refinement, especially in mmWave where the slightest enhancements matter.”

“Modern RF applications ranging from SDR and 5G to satcom, EW and more demand components with low insertion loss and small form factors,” says Mike Dunne, Precision RF product manager at Samtec. “The combination of Otava’s new low insertion loss RF filters and switches and Samtec’s Precision RF interconnect offers RF engineers and system designers high-performance components that optimize the entire RF signal path. Otava’s family of OTSW10x and OTFLx01 evaluation boards feature the latest Samtec 2.4 mm edge-mount compression connectors and launch optimizations.”

Tunable filters

Otava’s family of tunable filters covers multiple frequency bands for a range of different applications from 2.5 GHz to 40 GHz. These highly integrated tunable designs eliminate the need for multiple fixed frequency filters, which frees up valuable real estate for system implementation. The OTFL101 covers 2.5-7.5 GHz, the OTFL201 covers 14-24 GHz and the OTFL301 covers 24 to 40 GHz.

Each filter evaluation board consists of:

o    one tunable filter

o    two RF connectors

o    a microcontroller

o    an option for external control

The tunable filter evaluation boards OTFL101-EVAL, OTFL102-EVAL and OTFL103-EVAL are available for $1,495.00 (USD) each.

Switches

Otava’s single pole double throw switches offer exceptional insertion loss performance and linearity from DC to 40 GHz in a compact footprint. The OTSW100 is 2.546 mm x 2.161 mm, while the OTSW101 is 1.634 mm x 1.637 mm.

The switch evaluation boards offer a simple way to assess the device performance. 

Each switch evaluation board consists of:

o    the switch IC

o    three 2.4 mm connectors for the RFIO

o    two +/- 2.5 V control lines through a header

The switch evaluation boards OTSW100-EVAL and OTSW101-EVAL are available for $899.00 (USD) each.