Started as a traditional small family business in 1965 in Brewster, NY, Werlatone®, Inc. (www.werlatone.com) has grown over the course of 60 years into a top supplier of high-frequency passive components and electronic products to commercial and military customers. Founded by Glenn Werlau, Werlatone was first tasked to develop an exciter for Airborne Instruments Laboratory (AIL) on the EA-6B Prowler electronic-warfare (EW) aircraft. Since then, Werlatone has grown steadily, meeting and exceeding challenging requirements for commercial, industrial, and military high-power passive components at RF and microwave frequencies. Werlatone steadily pursues higher power levels in smaller packages while increasing the frequencies and bandwidths of its products. From its initial military assignment, the firm now serves a wide range of customers in diverse markets, including communications equipment, electronic-warfare (EW) systems, and aerospace and defense (A&D) radar systems.
These six decades have given rise to a broad range of high-power, high-frequency components and integrated assemblies for military, space, and electromagnetic-compatibility (EMC) environments. The company has grown into a spacious facility with full on-site manufacturing capabilities to J-STD-001 certification, extensive on-premises high-power, high-frequency test laboratories, and dedicated staff with 265 years of cumulative engineering experience. The company boasts 30 active patents with several patents pending and has earned 60 patents over the 60 years in business.
Practical Power
From the start, high-frequency power has been the focus at Werlatone as they studied the effects of high-frequency power on the performance of passive components and their contributions to higher-level electronic systems. Such analysis helps minimize the RF losses in both the transmit and receive systems. Since signal energy losses at high power levels typically transform into heat through the lossy components, minimizing those losses also benefits the thermal management of a high-power signal path, and Werlatone has been making its efforts to “minimize the heat” for 60 years. While striving for ultimate efficiency, Werlatone never loses sight of the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of its products to meet the demands of customers for modern electronic systems.
Working to 6 GHz through 2010, the company extended its range to 18 GHz over the past decade. By investing in integrated approaches to design and manufacturing, Werlatone has earned a unique position in the high-frequency electronics industry for high power levels within components and assemblies that also meet or exceed the most stringent requirements for reduced size, weight, and power with low cost (SWaP-C).
Werlatone’s passive components can even deliver high power levels under less-than-ideal conditions. Mismatch Tolerant® directional couplers, for example, are designed to operate continuously when faced with a poor impedance match or conditions representing an infinite VSWR. They leverage thoughtful design and precise manufacturing to handle high power levels in miniature packages. Model C6238, for example, is a dual directional coupler that handles as much as 5 kW CW power from 1.5 to 30.0 MHz in a package measuring just 5.0 × 3.0 × 2.24 in. Rated for the same power from 13 to 250 MHz, model C3115 is a dual directional coupler in an even smaller package of 3.75 × 3.0 ×1.88 in.
High power combiners rely on low losses, and Werlatone’s radial power combiners handle high power levels by achieving low losses and low VSWRs, even for as many as 32 coaxial ports. For example, model D9710 is an 8-way radial coaxial combiner. It is rated for 2 kW CW maximum power from 1000 to 2500 MHz, which it achieves with the help of low VSWR (1.40:1 maximum) and almost negligible insertion loss (0.3 dB maximum). Model D6857 is a 32-way radial power combiner capable of handling twice as much power (4 kW CW maximum) from 1200 to 1400 MHz.
In 2010, Werlatone introduced hybrids in miniature surface-mount-technology (SMT) packages, making it possible to process reasonable levels of RF/microwave power within tight spaces. By investing in integrated approaches to design and manufacturing, Werlatone has developed an approach in which electronic products are designed with manufacturing methods, such as linewidth tolerances and component placements, in mind. The integrated design/manufacturing approach helps realize standard and custom solutions at higher power levels that meet or exceed the most stringent requirements for reduced size, weight, and power with low cost (SWaP-C). The firm even provides a means of measuring forward and reverse RF power with high accuracy and resolution, using its digital RF power meters with 40-dB dynamic range and better than ±5% accuracy.
Werlatone has blended its expertise in passive components, such as absorptive filters, directional couplers, power combiners/dividers, phase shifters, 90-deg. hybrids, and 180-deg. hybrids, into high-power modular beamformers in compact waveguide and coaxial enclosures. Beamformers, which direct RF energy to and from antenna elements within multielement array antennas, are being used more and more for radar and satcom installations. Werlatone’s beamformers currently cover frequencies from 20 MHz to 12 GHz for many radar applications. These include L-band air-traffic-control (ATC) radars from 1 to 2 GHz, S-band ATC and marine radars from 2 to 4 GHz, and C-band weather radars from 4 to 8 GHz.
After 60 years Werlatone remains dedicated to solving wideband and narrowband RF power challenges while providing those solutions in smaller, lighter packages.
Peter Kuring, Co-CEO, Werlatone