Down converter module fits critical applications

A growing number of commercial board manufacturing companies are exploiting FPGA technology to satisfy complex design requirements while allowing for future changes. Pentek is one of the pioneers in FPGA-based board design specializing in data acquisition, software radio, and digital signal processing. Their latest product is the Model 7153 digital down converter (DDC), a four-channel, high-speed digitizer PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card ) module designed for processing baseband RF or IF signals from a communications receiver. The module employs four of the new ADS5485 200 MHz, 16-bit monolithic analog to digital converters just released by Texas Instruments. The Model 7153 DDC offers two modes of operation. The two-channel DDC mode sacrifices two DDC channels to boost the maximum decimation to 65,536 and extend the lower bandwidth limit down to 3 kHz. The four-channel DDC mode provides an independently programmable decimation range from two to 256 on each DDC, covering signal bandwidths from about 700 kHz to 90 MHz. The Model 7153.also includes built-in beamforming capabilities for critical applications such as radar, direction-finding, and diversity receivers allowing the system to synchronize multiple channels, perform digital downconversion, control the gain and the phase delay of each channel and then perform a summation of the DDC outputs. Pentek supports the Model 7153 with its ReadyFlow board-support libraries that are ported for the Windows, Linux, and VxWorks operating systems. The Model 7153 PMC module starts at $12,500 for the hardware. Delivery is 10 to 12 weeks ARO.