National Semiconductor
Application Note 2064
Gerrit de Wagt and Jaimy de Koning
July 21, 2010
LMH2120 Evaluation Board
tercept only, reducing calibration effort significantly. The de-
vice operates with a single supply from 2.7V to 5V. The
LMH2120 has an RF power detection range from -35 dBm to
5dBm and is ideally suited for use in combination with a di-
rectional coupler. Alternatively, a resistive divider can be
used.
General Description
The LMH2120 is a 40 dB Linear RMS power detector
particularly suited for accurate power measurement of
modulated RF signals that exhibit large peak-to-average ra-
tios; i.e., large variations of the signal envelope. Such signals
are encountered in W-CDMA and LTE cell phones. The RMS
measurement topology inherently ensures a modulation in-
sensitive measurement.
The device is active for EN=High − otherwise it is in a low
power-consumption shutdown mode. To save power and pre-
vent discharge of an external filter capacitance, the output
(OUT) is high impedance during shutdown.
The device has an RF frequency range from 50 MHz to 6GHz.
It provides an accurate temperature- and supply- insensitive
output voltage that relates linearly to the RF input power (Fig-
ure 5). The LMH2120's excellent conformance to a linear
response enables an easy integration by using slope and in-
The LMH2120 power detector is offered in a tiny 6-bump mi-
croSMD package.
Figure 1 shows the LMH2120 Evaluation Board.
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FIGURE 1. LMH2120 Evaluation Board
ply voltages and input signals can be applied to the on-board
connectors. The supply voltage is applied with connectors
P21 (VDD) and P22 (GND). The RF input signal is applied by
SMA connector P1. This RF signal is applied through an RF
generator and is connected with a 50Ω SMA cable. The de-
tector output can be measured via BNC connector P3.
Basic Operation
The circuit operates with a single supply form 2.7V to 5V and
has an RF power detection range from −35 dBm to 5dBm.
The board consist of a single LMH2120 along with external
components soldered on a printed circuit board. External sup-
© 2010 National Semiconductor Corporation
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