Maxim Engineer's Forum | Introduction and reference design of ASK modulator MAX41461

— Introduction and reference design of ASK modulator MAX41461 —

Lecturer of this issue: Li Yaxian, Application Engineer at Maxim

In this issue of Engineer's Corner, Maxim Integrated applications engineer Li Yaxian will introduce you to the MAX41461 and how to build its evaluation board.

The MAX41461 is a UHF transmitter designed to send on-off keying (OOK) or amplitude-shift keying (ASK) data in the 286MHz to 960MHz frequency range. It integrates a fractional phase-locked loop (PLL), so a single, low-cost crystal can be used to generate frequencies below 1GHz. The fast response time of the PLL allows the use of frequency-hopping spread-spectrum protocols to increase range and improve security. The chip also has preset modes for pin-selectable frequencies, so external microcontroller interface requires only a single wire.