EVAL-AD6676

Wideband IF Receiver Subsystem

Overview

The AD6676 is a highly integrated IF subsystem that can digitize radio frequency (RF) bands up to 160 MHz in width centered on an intermediate frequency (IF) of 70 MHz to 450 MHz. Unlike traditional Nyquist IF sampling ADCs, the AD6676 relies on a tunable band-pass Σ-Δ ADC with a high oversampling ratio to eliminate the need for band specific IF SAW filters and gain stages, resulting in significant simplification of the wideband radio receiver architecture. On-chip quadrature digital downconversion followed by selectable decimation filters reduces the complex data rate to a manageable rate between 62.5 MSPS to 266.7 MSPS. The 16-bit complex output data is transferred to the host via a single or dual lane JESD204B interface supporting line rates of up to 5.333 Gbps.

https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/analogdevicesinc/documentation/ad6676/docs/solutions/reference-designs/eval-ad6676/images/eval-ad6676.jpg

Features:

  • High instantaneous dynamic range

    • Noise figure (NF) as low as 13 dB

    • Noise spectral density (NSD) as low as −159 dBFS/Hz

    • IIP3 up to 36.9 dBm with spurious tones <−99 dBFS

  • Tunable band-pass Σ-Δ analog-to-digital converter (ADC)

    • 20 MHz to 160 MHz signal bandwidth

    • 70 MHz to 450 MHz IF center frequency

    • Configurable input full-scale level of −2 dBm to −14 dBm

    • Gain flatness of 1 dB with under 0.5 dB out-of-band peaking

    • 2.0 GSPS to 3.2 GSPS ADC clock rate

    • 16-bit I/Q rate up to 266 MSPS

  • On-chip digital signal processing

    • NCO and quadrature digital downconverter (QDDC)

    • Selectable decimation factor of 12, 16, 24, and 32

  • Automatic gain control (AGC) support

    • On-chip attenuator with 27 dB span in 1 dB steps

    • Fast attenuator control via configurable AGC data port

    • Peak detection flags with programmable thresholds

  • Single or dual lane, JESD204B capable

  • Low power consumption: 1.20 W

    • 1.1 V and 2.5 V supply voltage

    • TDD power saving up to 60%

  • 4.3 mm × 5.0 mm WLCSP

Applications:

  • Wideband cellular infrastructure equipment and repeaters

  • Point-to-point microwave equipment

  • Instrumentation

    • Spectrum and communication analyzers

  • Software defined radio

Recommendation

To better understand the AD6676, we recommend to use the EVAL-AD6676 evaluation board.

Table of contents

  1. Using the evaluation board/full stack reference design that we offer:

    1. Prerequisites

    2. User guide

    3. EVAL-AD6676 Quick Start Guides:

      1. Using the ZC706

    4. Configure an SD Card with Kuiper

    5. Software Solutions

      1. IIO Oscilloscope

      2. Scopy

      3. Libiio command line utility

      4. Python Interfaces

      5. AD6676 Python example

  2. Design with the AD6676

    1. Block diagram

      1. AD6676 product page

      2. EVAL-AD6676 product page

    2. Resources for designing a custom AD6676-based platform software

    1. For Linux software:

      1. About the device driver:

        1. AXI ADC HDL Linux driver

        2. AXI-DMAC DMA Controller Linux driver

        3. AD6676 Linux device driver

    2. For no-OS software:

      1. AD6676 no-OS Example Project

    3. FPGA Resources:

      1. HDL reference design which you must use in your FPGA.

      2. HDL User Guide

Block diagram

https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/analogdevicesinc/documentation/ad6676/docs/solutions/reference-designs/eval-ad6676/images/ad6676_fbl.png

Additional information

Application notes

  1. AN-835 Application Note, Understanding ADC Testing and Evaluation

  2. AN-877 Application Note, Interfacing to High Speed ADCs via SPI

Design tools

Help and support

People who follow the flow that is outlined, have a much better experience with things. However, like many things, documentation is never as complete as it should be. If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the EngineerZone technical support community, but before that, please make sure you read our documentation thoroughly.

Warning

All the products described on this page include ESD (electrostatic discharge) sensitive devices. Electrostatic charges as high as 4000V readily accumulate on the human body or test equipment and can discharge without detection. Although the boards feature ESD protection circuitry, permanent damage may occur on devices subjected to high-energy electrostatic discharges. Therefore, proper ESD precautions are recommended to avoid performance degradation or loss of functionality. This includes removing static charge on external equipment, cables, or antennas before connecting to the device.