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ADL5902 vs. AD8312 vs. AD8362 or which?

Hello-

I am new to RF, so excuse please.

My CDMA 3G phone has a reading in its settings that says it puts out -77 dBm or thereabouts when making or receiving a call.

While idle, it says -82 dBm.

I read similar dBm on another CDMA phone.

These phones operate either in the 800MHz or 1.9Ghz band according to the carrier's dox.

I want to design with an RF detector chip that will detect when this phone is in use and provide a signal strength output. The same chip needs to be able to detect and provide a signal strength output for the Wi-Max band (3.5 GHz).

In one of AD's tutorials I read that the best choice for CDMA and Wi-Max is an RMS detector rather than logarithmic. True?

For lower frequencies I have been using an inductor as the antenna, but have since read that an inductor will not work with GHz digital outputs.

Questions:

What kind of antenna is best to use?

What is the circuitry that connects this antenna?

Can I use one antenna for multiple frequencies?

Is there some documentation to read about this that goes along with the RF chips?

For a chip such as AD8362 which the output is "linear in dB", what does this mean, and do I need another chip to decode?

  -Getting a linear voltage output is most desirable simply because it seems the easiest to work with.

Thanks in advance.

  • Antenna Recommendation:

    Making an antenna recommendation is a bit beyond the scope of my knowledge. It will need to be as broadband as possible to cover the frequency range in which you want to operate. I would recommend that you start your search on the Richardson website (www.rell.com).

    Connecting to Antenna:

    RF detectors are typical sensitive down to around -60 dBm. So if you want to detect signals at lower levels, you will need a low noise amplifier. I would recommend ADL5602 in this case becasue it is broadband and has a reasonably good noise figure.

    Linear-in-dB:

    Linear-in-dB means that the transfer function of the detector has a slope with the unit V/dB. For example 50 mV/dB is a typical slope for an rf detector. So if the input signal changes from -60 dBm to -50 dBm     or  from -10dBm to 0 dBm, the delta at the output of the detector will be the same.

    RMS vs. Non-RMS

    If the signal type that you are going to be measuring will be changing (e.g. in terms of its peak-to-average ratio), then an rms responding detector is better because it is immune to changes in peak-to-average ratio. I would recommend ADL5902 (broadband operation with high dynamic range).

    Further reading is in the attached ap notes and articles. Also, see CN0178 and  CN0150 Circuits from the Lab

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