Hittite Microwave Corp. showcased a montage of new products at RWS 2006, held January 17-19, 2006, in San Diego, CA. Among the products on display included model HMC-C026, a GaAs MMIC distributed power amplifier connectorized module that is ideal for military EW/ECM, space, test equipment, wideband telecom, microwave radio and industrial applications from 2 to 20 GHz. This high dynamic range power amplifier module offers a midband noise figure of only 3 dB, with +25 dBm output power at 1 dB gain compression. This module features 29 dB of gain, allowing it to replace two or more amplifier stages in applications where high gain is required.
Two GaAs PHEMT low noise MMIC amplifiers were also on display. These amplifiers have been added to the company's growing line of low noise amplifiers and bypass low noise amplifiers for cellular/3G infrastructure applications. These LNAs are optimized for specific application frequency bands with little or no external matching, and are footprint compatible such that a single PC board design can be used to implement either part number. The model HMC376LP3 and model HMC382LP3 amplifiers operate from 700 to 1000 MHz and 1700 to 2200 MHz, respectively.
Also on display were model HMC586LC4B and model HMC587LC4B, wideband GaAs HBT VCOs that cover 4 to 8 GHz and 5 to 10 GHz, respectively. Output power and phase noise performance are good over temperature due to the monolithic construction of the oscillators. The Vtune port accepts an analog tuning voltage from 0 to +18 V. These wideband VCOs combine the attributes of ultra small size, low phase noise, low power consumption and wide tuning range.
Hittite recently announced that it has received ISO/TS 16949:2002 certification for the design, manufacture and sale of plastic encapsulated analog and mixed-signal ICs for RF, microwave and millimeter-wave applications for the automotive industry. ISO/TS 16949 is a quality management system that specifies automotive industry quality and manufacturing standards. In addition to receiving this new certification, the company also recertified to the ISO 9001:2000 standard, which it has maintained since 1997.