Pasternack Blog

Class III-V semiconductors, such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN) have become commonplace solid state technologies for low noise amplifiers and high power amplifiers from frequencies ranging from several hundred megahertz to over 100 GHz. For high power applications, GaN high electron mobility devices (HEMTs) are supplanting GaAs metal-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MESFET) amplifiers, ..

RF Transformers are two, or more, port passive devices with a wide range of uses for many RF applications. One of the most common uses of an RF transformer is the Balun, which provides efficient coupling between unbalanced transmission circuits and balanced circuits. Other common uses are for impedance matching between circuits of different impedances. ..

Voltage Controlled Oscillators (VCOs) are a key component to many tunable communications, radio, radar, sensing, and measurement systems. Essentially, a VCO is an oscillator that can be controlled by an input voltage, usually analog. Hence, adjusting the tuning voltage across its range also changes the VCOs output RF signal, proportionally. VCOs are used as key ..

Rotary joints, unlike typical adapters, have the ability to rotate about the axis perpendicular to the wave propagation direction. While maintaining transmission properties, these joints can rotate freely 360 degrees. This type of joint is necessary for any application that has a rotating section, such as a rotary antenna (air surveillance), missile guidance system, and ..

Controlling the phase of RF/microwave signals is an essential aspect of most modern communications, radar, and testing applications. Phase adjustments can be used to create a variety of effects, including combining, subtracting, and aligning signals, as well as part of phased-array antenna technology. Moreover, phase variations in a radar response can be used to distinguish important ..

RF/microwave power sensors/meters, or wattmeters, are one of the simplest and most commonly used test instruments for diagnostics and repair of radio systems. These devices essentially extract a portion of the energy from an RF device or antenna, and using calibrated and traceable standards, present a power reading. RF Power sensors/meters are often used in ..

Software Defined Radios (SDRs) were once a poorly understood niche device, and have essentially overtaken the architecture of most radio devices, superseding hardware defined radios (HDRs). Most common types of modern test equipment have some form of SDR capability, meaning that at least some of their physical-layer functions are determined by software instead of hardware. ..

Many types of RF test equipment are designed specifically to be used in high accuracy and repeatability test bench applications. These instruments include many spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, signal generators, oscilloscopes, though there are certainly portable and headless (PC-driven) varieties of this equipment out there. However, for technicians and installers, the broad capabilities, complexity, and ..

Unlike spectrum analyzers of the past, modern signal analyzers provide additional phase (time) information that can be used for much more expansive analysis than a power sweep across frequency. Though modern signal analyzers are often still called spectrum analyzers, the capability of signal analyzers includes many features beyond what a spectrum analyzer can perform. For ..

Spectrum Analyzers are one of the essential RF test and measurement instruments, alongside network analyzers, oscilloscopes, and signal generators. Spectrum Analyzers are one of the most versatile RF test instruments, and are used as dedicated laboratory equipment, integrated within larger RF test assemblies, part of mobile RF signal/interference hunting applications, and are even slung over ..