RF chips are notoriously hard to lay out, there are a lot of details to worry about: trace widths, via placements, impedance mismatches…so why not use ready-to-go designs? NXP has published a bunch of different RF power amplifier designs. NXP’s RF Circuit Collection is a comprehensive library of RF power amplifier designs, addressing a wide range of fast-growing markets from smart industrial applications to the 5G revolution.
This collection can reduce development time, with easy online access to proven designs for fast time to market. These eval boards are beautifully made, and have easy SMA connectors so you can plug-n-play different amplifiers based on your project need. For example, the highlighted board at Digi-Key is the NXP AFIC901N.
The AFIC901N is a 2-stage, high gain amplifier designed to provide a high level of flexibility to the amplifier designer. The device is unmatched even at the interstage, allowing performance to be optimized for any frequency in the 1.8 to 1000 MHz range. The high gain, ruggedness and wideband performance of this device make it ideal for use as a pre-driver and driver in a wide range of industrial, medical and communications applications.
The eval boards are not cheap – these are really high quality and high precision radio devices for medical, science, telecom and industry. The good news is that NXP has a free site set up to download the designs, so you can learn how RF layout is done, which will help HAMs and other RF engineers. Check it out here.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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