1998-12-15 , S/IC-2048/43
Product News From Philips Semiconductors

New low-cost Rx mixer ICs: an ideal choice for multi-mode handsets

Philips Semiconductors, a leading supplier of custom solutions for RF ICs in mobile phones, today announced its first standard catalog dual-band CDMA down-converter ICs for handset manufacturers. The company's  SA9500 and  SA9502 integrate all the front end receiver mixers necessary for use in dual-band, triple-mode CDMA/AMPS cellular phone handsets, helping designers capitalise on the market trend for multi-mode digital cellular handsets.

"Philips Semiconductors has been providing custom CDMA RF and mixed-signal ICs for several years. As the CDMA market continues to grow, these front-end mixer products enable us to expand our solutions and further ease design risk for handset makers," said Rajesh Patel, product marketing manager, Wireless Business Line, Philips Semiconductors. "These products, the first in the SA95XX CDMA family, will continue our focus on low-cost, low-power, highly integrated solutions for wireless telephony."

Conventional CDMA phone designs often employ discrete front-end architectures with passive mixers, requiring additional gain stages and higher-level local oscillator drive. Today, the SA9500 and SA9502 provide an integrated, lower current and lower cost alternative.

The active mixers provide a combination of low noise figures and conversion gain, easing receiver front end designs. Three individual mixer blocks, each optimized for high linearity with low power consumption, operate in one of the following modes: high-band 1900MHz PCS CDMA, low-band 800MHz cellular CDMA or analog FM AMPS/TACS modes. The current consumption is a low 7mA in the FM receive mode and approximately 18mA for the PCS or cellular CDMA receive modes from a 2.7V supply. Separate differential IF outputs are provided for FM and CDMA bandwidth IF filters. Additionally, the entire circuit can be powered down and put into sleep mode, significantly reducing the supply current and extending battery life. The circuit is available in a surface mount TSSOP20 package and has been designed in Philips Semiconductors' advanced QUBiC2 BiCMOS process.

The SA9500 and SA9502 offer an on-board frequency doubler for the cellular frequency local oscillator to obtain the PCS mixer local oscillator and thus save an external VCO. The SA9502 provides the additional flexibility to directly drive the PCS mixer's local oscillator port. A wideband programmable LO output buffer is also available for use in the transmitter section or with the feedback loop of the frequency synthesizer.

The SA9500 and SA9502 are available at US$ 1.47 in quantities greater than 100K pieces per year. Sampling kits and demonstration boards can be provided to help jump start designs. For more information or to order, please call +1-800-447-1500 ext. 1655.

Philips Semiconductors, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is the ninth largest semiconductor supplier in the world and the third largest supplier of discretes in the world. Philips Semiconductors' innovations in digital audio, video, and mobile technology position the company as a leader in the consumer, multimedia and wireless communications markets. Sales offices are located in all major markets around the world and are supported by systems labs.