Guerrilla RF, Inc. (OTCQX: GUER) announces the formal production release of the GRF2042 and GRF2043, two high linearity gain blocks with built-in bypass functionality. Both devices leverage the company’s patented Guerrilla Armor technology which prevents amplifiers from turning on in the presence of large RF input signals – a critical requirement for guaranteeing exceptional stage isolation and minimal impact on a device’s on-state performance.
“This proven piece of intellectual property is used extensively within our existing portfolio of LNAs with bypass,” says Ryan Pratt, CEO and founder of Guerrilla RF. “By extending this same technology to our gain block line, we can now offer a set of compelling broadband solutions with significantly improved linearity and compression performance. Guerrilla Armor™ also fits in the same form factor as the company’s existing, best-in-class gain blocks, requiring no additional components and resulting in substantial cost and size savings.”
Capable of providing exceptionally flat gain over multiple octaves, the GRF2042 and GRF2043 can be tuned to operate within a variety of bands between 0.15 and 6GHz. The pin-compatible amplifiers deliver 15.5dB and 18.5dB of gain, respectively, providing customers with gain customization via simple component swaps.
The bypass function allows the devices to support two selectable gain modes – a critical feature for many applications that require a fast yet simple way to quickly reduce the overall gain in a wireless system. This flexibility is critical for applications that need to quickly shift into a low-gain state to protect downstream blocks from damaging overdrive conditions.
When operating in its high gain mode at 1.7GHz, the GRF2042 draws only 80mA of current while delivering 15.5dB of gain, 38dBm of OIP3 linearity, a compression level of 22dBm, and a noise figure of 2.1dB. When in bypass mode, the gain is reduced to -1.6dB, yet the device maintains its excellent linearity and compression performance with OIP3 and OP1dB levels of 45dBm and 22dBm, respectively.
Its sister part, the GRF2043, provides 3dB more gain while still delivering comparable linearity and compression performance. At 1.9GHz, the device draws the same 80mA of current, with 18.5dB of gain, 36dBm of OIP3 linearity, a compression level of 22dBm, and a noise figure of only 1.8dB. Bypass mode gain is rated at -1.5dB, while linearity and compression increase to 45dBm and 23dBm, respectively.
Both components come in pin-compatible 1.5mm x 1.5mm, 6-pin DFN packages. As an added feature, the parts were purposely designed to be drop-in replacements for the popular GRF2012 and GRF2013 standard gain blocks. This added flexibility allows designers to easily swap in the GRF2042/GRF2043 variants for use cases where bypass capability is required. GRF now has over 25 low noise amplifiers, gain blocks, and driver cores that utilize this same package and pinout, allowing customers to quickly modify and optimize their designs for different frequencies as well as various levels of gain, noise figure, linearity, compression, and power dissipation. This modular approach has proven to be extremely popular with GRF’s customer base since it provides an exceptional degree of design latitude, translating directly into design speed and agility.
