STHVDAC-253C7 is 50% smaller than the previous generation
Reduce board space, material costs, and battery load

STMicroelectronics announced on the 28th the launch of the STHVDAC-253C7, a digital controller for variable capacitors such as those in its STPTIC family.
This controller stabilizes the RF performance of smartphones by reducing the size, material cost, and power consumption of the antenna tuning circuit.

Using the STHVDAC-253C7 with STPTIC capacitors for impedance matching and frequency tuning virtually eliminates the effects of environmental changes.

As a result, you'll get stronger signal reception, fewer dropped calls, faster data speeds, and longer battery life for your phone.

The STHVDAC-253C7 utilizes ST's advanced 0.18µm BCD8 process and a 0.35mm-pitch flip-chip package, making it 50% smaller and consuming half the operating current of its predecessor.

This new controller operates with the latest 0402 chip-size inductors and eliminates the need for external Schottky diodes, further reducing the overall circuit footprint.

The STHVDAC-253C7 is a tunableIt is a high-voltage Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) specifically designed to generate bias voltages for capacitors, providing three outputs suitable for tuning three different capacitances in GSM/WCDMA/LTE mobile phones.

ST has integrated the boost converter required to generate bias voltages across the full capacitor tuning voltage range from 0 V to 24 V. The STHVDAC-253C7 can also process standard MIPI RFFE (RF Front-End) commands from the system transceiver.

Supports three RFFE USIDs (Unique Slave IDs) through a single STHVDAC-253C7, allowing management of up to three individual antennas.

The STHVDAC-253C7 supports commonly used antenna tuning modes, including Normal Mode, which transitions to a new command output voltage within 10µs, Turbo Mode, which is optimized for minimum settling time, and Glide Mode, which provides a programmable delay from 512µs to 16.84ms to meet requirements such as 3GPP phase discontinuity and enable the smoothest transition.

Additionally, GPIO pins are provided for managing two controllers on the same RFFE bus in dual-tuner handsets. Registers can be switched to manage antenna diversity designs, or settings can be adjusted to adjust antenna response when a USB cable is plugged in.

The STHVDAC-253C7 is in ramp-up production, based on a 12-bump, 0.35mm-pitch WLCSP flip-chip. Pricing starts at $0.19 for orders of 1,000 units, and samples are available immediately to support design and development.