October 2012

Doc ID 023704 Rev 1

1/14

AN4169

Application note

PCB design guidelines for the SPIRIT1 transceiver

By Placido De Vita

Introduction

The SPIRIT1 is a very low power RF transceiver, intended for RF wireless applications in the

sub-1 GHz band. It is designed to operate both in the license-free ISM and SRD frequency

bands at 169, 315, 433, 868 and 915 MHz.

This application note is intended to accompany the reference designs and provide detailed

information regarding the design decisions employed within STMicroelectronics designs. In

addition, it details the design guidelines for developing a generic radio frequency application

using a SPIRIT1 device.

The RF performance and the critical maximum peak voltage, spurious and harmonic

emission, receiver matching strongly depend on the PCB layout as well as the selection of

the matching network components.

For optimal performance, STMicroelectronics recommends the use of the PCB layout

design hints described in the following sections. Also, but no less importantly,

STMicroelectronics strongly suggests using the BOM defined in the reference design which

guarantees, along with a good PCB design, the correct RF performance.

For further information, visit the STMicroelectronics web site at www.st.com.

www.st.com