
Preliminary
4-90
RF2472
Rev A6 011023
4
G
A
T heory of Operation
The RF2472 is a low-noise amplifier with internal bias
circuitry. It is DC-coupled on the input and output;
therefore, it can be used to arbitrarily low frequency. It
has useful gain to above 6GHz. Its design is optimized
for use at 2.4GHz. Because of the high-frequency
gain, the designer must take care to ensure that the
device will remain stable outside the desired operating
frequency. The RF2472 is capable of providing out-
standing linearity, but to achieve this high performance,
the circuit designer must pay attention to the termina-
tions that are presented to low-frequency intermodula-
tion products.
Stability
The RF2472 must be stabilized for frequencies outside
of the desired operating range. Ground connections
should be kept as short as possible. Wherever practi-
cal, ground should be provided by a via hole directly to
a continuous ground layer. Highly reflective termina-
tions to the RF input and output pins should be avoided
whenever possible. In most circumstances, a resistor
in parallel with an inductor in the bias line on pin 5 will
improve the stability of the circuit. See the application
schematics for examples. The 10nH inductor in the
bias line is part of an output impedance matching cir-
cuit. At higher frequencies, the impedance of the
matching circuit, alone, would become highly inductive.
The large reactive termination of the output port could
cause the circuit to oscillate at a high frequency. The
resistance in parallel with the inductor adds a real part
to the high-frequency termination that will have a stabi-
lizing effect on the circuit.
Linearity
The 22nF bypass and coupling capacitors in the appli-
cation schematics may seem excessively large for cir-
cuits intended to operate at 1.9GHz and 2.4GHz.
These large capacitors provide a low impedance path
to ground for second-order mixing products that leads
to improved third-order intermodulation performance.
The effect is most easily seen for the input coupling
capacitor. A 100pF capacitor would provide low
enough impedance to couple a 2.4GHz signal into the
input pin of the RF2472. However, low-frequency inter-
modulation products caused by second-order nonlin-
earities would be presented with a large reactive
impedance at the input pin. Relatively large voltages
for these low-frequency products would be allowed to
mix with the fundamental signals at the input pin,
resulting in relatively large, in-band, third-order prod-
ucts.
With a large coupling capacitor, the low-frequency
products would be presented with a low impedance,
via the input source impedance, resulting in a lower
voltage at the input pin. These products, in turn, would
mix at a lower level with the fundamental signals to
produce lower in-band, third-order products.
Some designers may be concerned about the self-res-
onant frequency of large coupling capacitors. A 22nF
capacitor will probably pass through self resonance
below 100MHz. Beyond resonance, the reactance of
the capacitor will turn inductive, but the internal losses
of the capacitor will usually prevent the component
from exhibiting a large reactive impedance.
Third-Order Intercept versus 1-dB Compression
Point
For many devices, the third-order intercept point is
approximately 10dB higher than the 1-dB compression
point. This rule of thumb does not apply for the
RF2472. It is normal to find that the third-order inter-
cept point is 20 dB higher than the 1-dB compression
point. This behavior is common for SiGe devices. The
reason for the difference is that the 10dB rule is based
on a simple third-order polynomial model for device
nonlinearities. For SiGe devices this simple model is
not a good fit.