hf/rf ZONE Products for the week of August 5, 2002
Motorola says . . .
MC13190: 2.4 GHz Transceiver IC Boosts Short-Range
Wireless Data, Toys and Streaming Audio Applications
Capable of up to 5 Mbit/sec Over-The-Air Data Rates
Designers can easily add cost-effective, short-range wireless data features to their products using the 2.4 GHz Transceiver IC introduced by Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS). This transceiver is a short-range, low-power, single-chip radio designed to provide fully-integrated receiver and transmitter functions for a wide range of applications. The device is designed to require very few external components, helping to reduce end-product system and manufacturing costs.
The high level of integration in the model MC13190 transceiver can simplify the design process for complex low-cost wireless applications. This IC is engineered to enable flexible and customizable system designs in a broad variety of short-range wireless markets, including wireless streaming audio, wireless toys and short-range wireless data applications, including two-way remote control and telemetry functions. Streaming audio applications include wireless speakers and wireless headphones, since this device can support the data rate needed to process streaming audio.
Because the MC13190 device can also support a flexible data rate, it is suitable for low-rate applications like wireless interactive toys. This transceiver is also capable of low latency connections for wireless video game controllers.
IC Architecture
This transceiver IC is designed to interface to multiple devices, including
microcontrollers, microprocessors and DSPs to support the needs of many
different applications. The receiver section includes a low noise amplifier
(LNA), an AM demodulator, band pass filter and a limiter. The transmitter
portion provides modulation control, baseband filtering, and an AM modulator.
This IC also has an on-chip PLL/VCO. The total number of external components
needed for the
RF function is typically reduced to between 10 and 20, due to the cost-effective
AM architecture of the IC.
"The MC13190 transceiver offers our customers a low-power, low parts
count solution, without compromising RF performance or reliability,"
said Behrooz Abdi, vice president and general manager of Motorola's Radio
Products Division. "We are enabling an advanced class of consumer electronics
and entertainment products that add new dimensions of real time wireless
connectivity and control, or wireless digital audio."
analogZONE Says . . .
This part was missed by me at its initial release and it wasn't until a reader asked me if I had ignored it because there was something I didn't like about it that I went back to take a look. And no, there's nothing I dislike about the product, although the product preview sheet is too Europeanized (even for this European) for me to get my teeth into.
The product has as about a simple architecture as you could get with a receiver that is balanced throughout with an input LNA feeding directly into an AM demodulator, bandpass (baseband) filter and a limiter. The receiver sensitivity is quoted as being -68 dBm for a 15 dB SNR at the demodulator output. The limiter is 80 dB and can be bypassed. The transmit chain takes the input data into a modulation depth control (up to 60%, or 80% depending where you look or read) through a bandpass filter to the AM modulator. Carrier is provided by an on-chip 256x loop of an external reference frequency giving a required crystal frequency of 9.537 MHz with a 100 ppm tolerance for a nominal 2.242 GHz. That clock could be provided by the clock module on a suitable microcontroller. A trim cycle for the PLL is enabled whenever the circuit is powered or the supply voltage/temperature change. Output power is quoted as being a typical 8.0 dBm with output matching required. Peak transmit quiescent is typically 64 mA and receiver quiescent is a typical 12 mA. Standby current is 78 uA. The analog supply voltage is 2.7 V with the logic supply between 1.6 V and 3.0 V.
The occupied bandwidth of the transmitter is 26 MHz at -23 dBc, while the out-of-band spurious are worst at the subharmonic range around 1.2 GHz with a maximum level of -30 dBm. Operations should be consistently possible 10 to 15 m line of sight, and Manchester-encoded rates up to 5 Mbit/s are possible.
Separate enables are available for the receiver (LNA, demod and limiter), the transmitter (active filter, modulator and modulation control), the PLL (synthesizer and VCO), and trimming for the VCO. A separate control grounds the inputs to the LNA when the transmit circuits are powered up which allows the user to keep the receiver powered during transmit if that is better for the particular application saving, for example, the 5 us power-up time.
For some strange reason the Product Preview gives S-parameters for the MC13190 from 0.5 GHz to 5.5 GHz. More useful is the layout that is given for a suitable microstrip antenna and matching. The part is fabricated in RF BiCMOS.
The MC13190 should do extremely well in applications such as two-way remotes, wire replacement in game control (and the like), audio streaming (to headphones and speakers), telemetry, and interactive toys.
The MC13190 should be sampling this quarter in a 5 x 5 mm QFN-32 (Motorola
case 1311) and will be priced at $3.05 in 10-k piece lots.