Maxim tuner ICs cut component count

Maxim Integrated Products announced the first product in its new family of mobile television tuner ICs. The MAX2160 single-chip tuner is designed for integration into portable devices such as cellphones and PDAs that will receive digital TV broadcasts based on the Japanese ISDB-T single-segment broadcast standard.

With a 3.5dB noise figure that eliminates the need for an external LNA, the new product requires only capacitors, resistors and a crystal to complete the interface from a mobile UHF antenna to the digital baseband demodulator IC, forming a fully functional TV tuner, said the company. In addition, power consumption is less than 125W of continuous power.

The MAX2160 interfaces to a variety of baseband decoders. It uses an I/Q low-IF architecture that allows either one (I) or both (I and Q) outputs to be used. This architecture achieves 55dB (typ) of image rejection, as well as 45dBc of adjacent channel power handling. Additionally, the low-IF architecture eliminates the need for a channel selecting SAW filter. The SAW filter is replaced with on-chip band-pass filters.

The MAX2160ETL is specified for the extended industrial temperature range and is offered in a 6-by-6mm, 40-pin thin QFN package. Prices start at $4 in quantities of 100,000. Samples are already available.