Hristo Grigorov – Applications Engineer, Mini-Circuits Israel – MCDI

Performing sensitivity tests on RF receivers can be challenging, time-consuming, and prone to issues using the traditional method. To create the sensitivity test setup, you will usually need to create a physical separation between the transmitter and the receiver. When you wish to measure the receiver’s sensitivity, the signal by the transmitter should be attenuated significantly. This can be achieved using a set of fixed attenuators. Besides, sometimes, the RF signal not only reaches the receiver through the RF line but can also be radiated from the transmitter and picked up by the sensitive receiver. Thus, it is not uncommon to place the receiver and the transmitter in separate rooms and use a long coaxial RF cable to connect them. To measure the exact level of sensitivity, traditionally, a mechanical variable attenuator with a dial is used. Once all is connected, you need to change the attenuation values by turning the mechanical variable attenuator’s dial. Sometimes, you will need to be in one room with the receiver and monitor its performance, while someone else will need to assist and operate the transmitter and the mechanical attenuator in the other room. The process can be very time-consuming, overly complicated, and even gets worse when you find out that you do not have the needed attenuation value or if the attenuator value is not correct for some reason.

Thankfully, with Mini-Circuits’ digital attenuators, all this hassle and complexity is now a thing of the past. Your engineering life will be much simpler with a remotely managed digital attenuator, and your tests will be a breeze.
Mini-Circuits excellent digital attenuators are as small as the palm of your hand. The digital attenuators come with SMA in and SMA out connectors, a USB connection for control purposes, an RS232 connector, or an Ethernet/LAN one. With Mini-Circuits’ digital attenuators, you do not need to look for different attenuators or values or make manual adjustments. Everything happens within the digital attenuators.

Mini-Circuits offers an extensive range of digital attenuators covering many use cases:

• Up to 120 dB attenuation range
• Step size as fine as 0.1 dB
• Supporting frequencies up to 40 GHz
• Up to 2W input power (to handle higher power signals, please combine with our fixed high power attenuators)
• Up to 8 independent RF channels so that you can perform eight different tests at the same time using the same unit

Examples of different digital step attenuators with 1, 4, or 8 independently controlled channels: