Need to increase GSPS and broadband RF information update speed

Are you an FPGA or radar, wireless infrastructure and instrumentation designer looking to improve system performance without interleaving or removing annoying signal artifacts?

In high-speed conversion, resolution or sampling rate are important, but they are not the only factors that designers need to consider in their designs. In Figure 1, the reflected signal strength decays as the cube of the distance, leaving a very weak RF return loss in the cluttered background, but with the right GSPS converter, system designers can improve system performance and signal range.

Figure 1: The AD9625 has the best noise and dynamic range to more effectively reach active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars

Not all 12-bit or 14-bit GSPS converters are created equal. In fact, ADC resolution and sampling rate are only two of seven important criteria that determine the performance of a GSPS converter in wideband RF applications:

1.ADC resolution

2. Sampling rate

3. Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)

4. Effective Number of Bits (ENOB)

5. Input bandwidth

6. Spurious Free Dynamic Range (SFDR)

7. Differential or integral nonlinearity

Two new devices in ADI’s wideband RF data acquisition technology portfolio meet all seven criteria:

The dual-channel, 1.25 V, 14-bit, 1 GSPS AD9680 ADC achieves breakthrough 14-bit GSPS performance with best-in-class noise and dynamic range performance for direct RF sampling. Its 154 dBFS/Hz noise density is the lowest in the industry.

Figure 2: Dual-channel, 1.25 V, 14-bit, 1 GSPS AD9680 ADC

As the industry's best performing 12-bit, 2 GSPS ADC, the AD9625 provides the world's best signal extraction performance over wider bandwidths and in congested RF environments. The AD9625 has better receiver sensitivity and can resolve smaller signals in environments with noise, clutter, blockers, and interference.

Figure 3: 12-bit, 2 GSPS AD9625 ADC

Evaluation board environment to accelerate prototyping and design

Each GSPS ADC is compatible with FPGAs from major manufacturers and comes with a known good configuration. Support resources for both converters include evaluation boards, FPGA mezzanine card (FMC) connectors, software, tools, SPI controllers, and reference designs. ADI's VisualAnalog is a software package that integrates a powerful set of simulation and data analysis tools with a user-friendly graphical interface, allowing designers to customize input signals and data analysis methods. With this high-speed ADC SPI controller tool, users can control advanced features of ADCs with SPI capabilities. Also available is the industry's first data acquisition board that supports 12.5 Gbps JESD204B channel rates.