
18
Lucent Technologies Inc.
Data Sheet
September 1999
Cordless Telephony—Version 2.0
W9009 RF Transceiver for 900 MHz
Testing and Application of the W9009 (continued)
Receive Signal Strength Indicator
The receive signal strength indicator (RSSI) is a dc voltage logarithmically proportional to the strength of the
received signal. Thus, the RSSI output has a fixed change in voltage for a given number of dB change in received
signal power. The W9009’s RSSI slope is nominally 20 mV/dB, accurate to within ±2 dB, over a 70 dB range of
input power.
The RSSI is a product of the IF amp and limiter. Both the IF amp and limiter are made up of three cascaded ampli-
fier stages. Each stage drives a circuit based on a full wave rectifier, whose output is a current proportional to the
amplifier stage’s output signal. The currents are summed, logarithmically scaled, and converted into a voltage out-
put.
At low-input signals, only the last stage of the limiter has an appreciable voltage swing, and is the only stage con-
tributing to RSSI. As the signal increases, the limiter output saturates. Beyond this point, it can no longer increase
its contribution to RSSI. However, the RSSI is designed that at this point the previous stage has a signal large
enough to contribute to the RSSI. As the signal increases, this stage saturates, the next previous one begins to
contribute, and so on until either the first stage of the IF amp or the downconverter saturates.
5-7996
Figure 9. RSSI Test Circuit
Figure 9 shows the RSSI test circuit. The input is to the IFAIP pin, with R1 of 50
, C1 of 0.01 F, and C2 of
1000 pF. Bypass caps C3 and C5 are 0.1
F. The IF amp output is fed to the limiter input through ceramic band-
pass filter F1. R2 and C4 provide termination for the filter with 330
and 0.01 F values, respectively. The limiter
output is terminated either to ground or a spectrum analyzer through C6 (100 pF) and R3 (10 k
). The RSSI output
is connected directly to a voltmeter for the most accurate reading, or alternately to an oscilloscope to monitor
changes with time. R4 and C7 optionally provide a small amount of low-pass filtering, nominally set to 1 k
and
1000 pF for a 1
s time constant.
C1
9
IFAIN
IFAIP
R1
C2
10
C3
VCC
11
C4
15
14
IFLIN
IFLIP
R2
12
13
C5
VCC
16
IFLVCC
IFLOUT 17
RSSI 18
DVM
IFAVCC
IFAOUT
IFGND
F1
R3
C6
GROUND OR
TO SPECTRUM
ANALYZER
IF INPUT
C7
R4