Channelling wideband applications
09 June 2009
Dual channel transceiver suitable for wideband radar applications also features dual FPGA architecture.
The Model 7156 Dual Channel Transceiver from Pentek comprises two 400 MHz A/D converters with 14-bit resolution and two 800 MHz D/A converters with 16-bit resolution. Both data converters on the 7156 use new Texas Instrument monolithic devices, the ADS5474 and the DAC5688, respectively.
While this module is attractive to developers of military radio transceivers with high-bandwidth channels, the wideband data converters and multichannel synchronisation also directly target new wideband radar applications.
This PMC features a built-in clock synthesiser that accepts an external 5 MHz or 10 MHz reference and synthesises two phase-locked, low-jitter clocks delivered separately to the A/D and D/A converters. A front panel digital connector synchronises multiple 7156’s to support beamforming, diversity combining and phased array applications.
The TI DAC5688 provides an interpolation filter and a digital upconverter to translate a complex baseband digital signal to an IF frequency up to 300 MHz and then deliver it through the D/A converter as an analogue IF output.
The dual FPGA architecture of the 7156 offers processing power with the flexibility to handle custom DSP algorithms in the signal processing FPGA and custom I/O functions in the interface FPGA. Both FPGAs are members of Xilinx’s Virtex-5 family allowing customers to choose specific FPGA devices for each to fulfill particular requirements.
In addition to the 100 MHz 64-bit PCI-X interface, the 7156 also offers an XMC interface for gigabit serial I/O. Customers can install their own serial communication Internet protocol (IP) or popular I/O standards such as Xilinx’s Aurora, a low overhead protocol ideal for high speed point-to-point connections.
“At these high sampling rates, embedded systems developers can reap huge benefits by processing data locally using on-board FPGA resources,” said Rodger Hosking, vice president. “Towards that end, the dual FPGA architecture of the 7156 was tailored specifically for custom FPGA development.”
“For applications that still need high transfer rates to the rest of the system, we’ve also added tremendous I/O capability to eliminate bottlenecks and boost throughput. Both FPGAs are equipped with multiple 4X gigabit serial links, each capable of moving data at 1.25 GB/sec. Flexible link path options connect both FPGAs to the XMC interface and to each other,” he concluded.
Although the 7156 is a PMC/XMC board, the same features are also available in four other bus formats, including the 7656 PCI board, the 7756 full-length PCI Express board, the 7256 6U CompactPCI board, and the 7356 3U CompactPCI board.
A total of 512 MB of DDR2 SDRAM memory arranged in two banks allows users to capture real-time data, storing it in a local memory. This feature will have particular appeal to those engaged in wideband radar, where the destination device cannot handle the peak real-time data rates, and the SDRAM acts as an elastic buffer. The SDRAM can also be used to store an arbitrary waveform for playback through the D/A converters. Optionally, the total SDRAM capacity can be doubled to 1 GB.
The 7156 is supported under Windows, followed by Linux and VxWorks operating systems, with Board Support Packages (BSP) for each. Each BSP includes an OS driver as well as a full feature ReadyFlow C language library to support all board functions and provide sample applications for quick development startup.
Pentek provides GateFlow FPGA design kits for both FPGAs. Each GateFlow kit includes all factory-installed functions, allowing users to add their own custom IP and signal processing algorithms to the factory infrastructure.
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