Crystal radios used to be the “gateway drug” into hobby electronics. Trouble was, there’s only so much one can hope to accomplish with a wire-wrapped oatmeal carton, a safety-pin, and a razor blade.

To address the challenge of improving power-added efficiency (PAE) for high-powered amplifiers, Analog Devices developed the ADL5511 TruPwr rms and envelope detector. The chip combines two RF ...