The engineer’s guide to RF cable assembly selection and use
To achieve the desired performance, a cable assembly must handle the appropriate frequency range without significant signal loss or distortion. For example, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) sets stringent signal quality requirements under their 2082-1 guidelines, which limits loss to 40 decibels (dB) at half the clock frequency.
One way to meet these demands is with the Molex BNC Mini RF Cable Assemblies, which deliver high return-loss performance at frequencies of up to 12 GHz. This performance exceeds the requirements for serial transmission of 8K high-definition TV (HDTV) video, allowing for future bandwidth expansion without hardware changes.
Frequency compatibility, impedance matching, and VSWR Choosing the appropriate cable assembly requires careful consideration of multiple factors. First, the assembly must be able to accommodate the frequency range of the RF signal. These can vary from a few hundred hertz to the super high frequency (SHF) band of 3 to 30 GHz or higher (Figure 1).
Figure 1: RF cable assemblies come in a wide variety of designs, which can be categorized by the size of the connector and their maximum supported frequency, among other factors. (Image source: Molex)
6
Powered by FlippingBook