Learn About The Active Components In RF Circuits

As with most of the passive components, the active components which are used in RF circuits also share a number of characteristics that are usually found in lower-frequency analog setups or systems.  That being said, there are a few components that are particularly specific to the design of the RF. Additionally, numerous semiconductor technologies are often deployed to make sure the RF components offer the best performance at even very high-frequency levels. We discuss some of the most useful active components used in RF boards and circuits.

Amplifiers - Amplifier circuits are mostly built around an operational amplifier. These are highly common in both low and high-frequency analog designs. In the case of RF systems, there are two key types of amplifiers that are used. These are low-noise amplifiers and power amplifiers. Power amplifiers increase the power level of an RF signal before the actual transmission. As for the low-noise amps, they are used to amplify the very small signals that are received by the antenna.

Mixers - Another prominent RF component is the mixer. Many experts tell that this can be a misleading name. This is because an RF mixer does not combine signals in the same way as an audio mixer is able to do. What is does instead is take a couple of input frequencies and produce a third output frequency in the form of multiplication. In plain and simple words, a mixer is able to perform numerous types of translation. This active-passive component allows signals to be shifted to higher or lower frequencies. This is done in a way that maintains the signal details in the best possible way. For instance, when an information-carrying baseband signal can be moved to a higher frequency, it is able to retain the most crucial details that were not present in the baseband signal.

Phase-locked loop - The basic generation of a periodic signal can be more closely related to the passive component domains. However, this is when active components can be used to manipulate t all the periodic signals. A phase-locked loop or PLL is basically a system of sub-components. This allows a wide variety of output frequencies to be produced from a single input frequency.

Consider this post and make use of the best radio frequency microwave components.