Pasternack Blog

RF Electromechanical switches are a key active device in many signal chains, including time-domain duplex communications and pulsed radar applications. Such switches can be as simple as a 3-port toggle switch, or single pole double throw, or more complicated as double pull switches or single pole switches with more than 10 poles. A main benefit ..

Both RF limiters and Attenuators reduce the power of an RF signal. However, they do so in different ways that are key to understanding their use. These components are often used to protect sensitive RF components and devices.There are also a wide range of RF limiters and attenuators that also operate various ways that may ..

Though both often dubbed as “dividers”, frequency dividers and power dividers perform very different functions. Where a power divider splits an input signal power to two or more output ports, a frequency divider actually outputs a frequency that is a fraction of the input frequency. A frequency divider should not be confused with a diplexer ..

It has been understood for nearly a century that the conductivity of conductive metals changes as a function of frequency. Though this is the case the phenomenon behind frequency dependent conductivity is not as well understood by man. It was observed early on that the attenuation and resistive losses of metallic transmission lines and traces ..

A hermetically sealed enclosure, or hermetic packaging, is a method of encapsulating a device or system in an environmentally protected package that prevents the exchange of the inside and outside environment. Hermetic packages are commonly seen in automotive, industrial, naval, military, and aerospace applications where the outside environment may lead to damage, early failure, or ..

Harmonics are spurious signal content (or spurious emissions) that are generated by a single frequency tone and nonlinear elements within a RF/microwave signal chain, or single-tone intermodulation distortion (IMD). The nonlinear elements create harmonics that are integer multiples of the fundamental frequency (often called the first harmonic). For instance, fo is the fundamental frequency and ..

There are several key methods of describing RF signal quality and device performance in respect to noise and linearity. As noise and linearity are often key considerations of both transmit and receive chains in communications and sensing systems, it is valuable for a technical professional to understand these parameters. The following is a brief description ..

It may be surprising to some that low power system and device/component design share many of the same considerations as high power system design, albeit for different reasons. The goal of low noise design is to limit the amount of added noise, harmonics, spurs, and other factors that increase the noise floor of a signal ..

Like with other key RF/microwave component and device parameters, accounting for power extremes in RF design and system integration requires a nontrivial amount of additional considerations. If the RF signal is optimized for other performance factors, such as noise, linearity, phase noise, or other signal quality factors and the signal power is well within the ..

A ground station, earth station, or earth terminal is the terrestrial radio system used in extraplanetary telecommunications with spacecraft and satellites. Ground stations are used to communicate, bidirectionally, with satellites and spacecraft, or receive electromagnetic energy in the radio frequency spectrum from astronomical sources. Given the nature of extraplanetary communications, ground stations and satellites/spacecraft typically ..