Multi-channel RF converters serve high-speed, transmit/receive designs
Stephen Law
Electronics converters RF wirelessANALOG DEVICES AD9081 and AD9082 mixed-signal, multi-channel RF converters front-ends combine high-performance analog and digital signal processing and allow designers to install multiband radios in the same footprint as single-band radios. By shifting more of the frequency translation and filtering from the analog to the digital domain, devices provide designers with the software configurability to customize radios. Firm’s MxFE platform processes more of the RF spectrum band and embeds DSP functions on-chip to enable the user to configure the programmable filters and digital up- and down-conversion blocks to meet specific radio signal bandwidth requirements. This results in a 10X power reduction compared to architectures that perform RF conversion and filtering on the field-programmable gate array, while freeing up valuable processor resources or allowing designers to use a more cost-effective FPGA.
