Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH has just released a new RF single-pole, double-throw (SPDT) switch in a compact package, suitable for applications such as telecommunications base stations, industrial equipment, repeaters, consumer equipment and transceivers.

The new high-power RF SPDT switch from Toshiba (TCWA1225G) offers an input peak power of 46 dBm (at 8 dB PAR). This has been achieved by adopting Toshiba’s original CMOS process and optimising the internal switching circuitry. The CMOS process also reduces insertion loss to avoid lowering transmit power and receiver sensitivity. As a result, the insertion loss of the TCWA1225G is 0.6 dB (typically at 5 GHz) – around 10 percent lower than competitive products.

The operating voltage is nominally 3.3 V and power consumption is just 50 μA. The new device is capable of operating in ambient temperatures from -40ºC to +95ºC.

The TCWA1225G is housed in a tiny wafer-level chip scale package measuring just 1.9 mm x 1.9 mm — giving a footprint around 10 percent smaller than other devices. All important pads including RF terminals, power and control are placed on the periphery of the device to simplify PCB layout.

As part of the 5G rollout, telecommunications base stations have recently introduced mMIMO and several TX/RX antennae to deliver ultra-high speed and ultra-large-capacity radio communications services.

Individual antennas are increasingly composed of complex signal transmission paths that need RF switching. This requires low insertion loss and high input power in a compact package so that antenna size is maintained or reduced.