RF receiver modules for common appliance has been evolved during these years, first, super-regenerative receiver modules have been gradually replaced by superheterodyne receiver modules, which provide far superior performance and stability, second, superheterodyne module itself is also constantly evolving, as we can recall, just a few years ago, there is a common near-field-jamming feature of superheterodyne receiver module, which causes them to stop working when remote control transmitter is placed too near to receiver modules, but now, most modules on market has tackled this problem and no more near-field-jamming, also we can see there are many components and a bit complex on superheterodyne receiver modules a while ago, nowadays the surrounding components are far less than before, and many functions have been integrated into single chip.
During years of experimenting and testing, both on performance and stability, we have chosen Princeton Technology’s PT4302 chip as our primary receiver module across all products, since it offers good stability and performance, around -112dBm at 433.92Mhz band, which is enough for most operation usage, such as garage door and gate control, universal remote control receiver etc. also the overall cost is not too high, which makes it perfectly suitable for most applications.
On a typical PT4302 receiver module board, the 3 major components are PT4302 chip, crystal and 10.7M band-pass filter, other components are just small capacitors, resistors and inductors, while our perfect receiver should integate all 3 components into one chip, and just save the trouble choosing different components to match, currently it seems we have to use these 3 major components together, this not only increases the difficulty during manufacturing, but also means we have to choose carefully the surrounding components, since different manufacturer makes different components, even different batch is more or less different from same manufacturer.
For example, when we make 433.92Mhz receiver module using PT4302 chip, the matching crystal should be 13.2256Mhz, we have picked from 5 different suppliers for this crystal, and finally chose one as supplier since it’s quality is the best.
So the basic principle is the less the better, while we look at new PT4304 receiver module’s prelimiary datasheet, it seems the new generation chip moved a step forward on this road, on typical PT4304 receiver module board, there are just two major components, PT4304 itself and crystal oscillator, so we will no need to buy band-pass filter anymore, and we think it is a good thing for stability and performance, and definitely worth check out.
And from official specs, PT4304 chip just shares the same performance in terms of sensitivity as PT4302 chip, and many design can be re-used, it just got better in every aspect without compromise.
But it seems PT4304 is still under development or new to market, since the latest datasheet dates Jan 2014, so we may not be able to use it at least in couple of months, but we will try it once we get chance, and ready to replace all our receiver module boards use the new PT4304 chip if test goes well.
For those who’re interested in the new generation receiver module, we have attached a copy of PT4304 datasheet, which can be found here.