FMC provides increased channel density & sample rates

9th December 2014

Pentek Inc

Siobhan O'Gorman

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Datasheet

A multichannel, high speed data converter FMC has been released by Pentek, expanding its Flexor line of FMC modules. Featuring eight 250MHz 16-bit ADCs, the Flexor Model 3316 doubles the existing channel density and boosts sample rates. Eight analogue HF or IF inputs are accepted by the front end, and transformer coupled with four Texas Instruments ADS42LB69 dual ADCs.

All timing and synchronisation required by the ADCs is provided by an internal timing bus. An external sample clock from the front panel coaxial connector can be received by an onboard clock generator and used directly as the sample clock or divided by a built-in clock synthesiser circuit. Alternatively, the sample clock can be sourced from an on-board programmable VCXO, where the front panel coaxial connector can be used to provide a 10MHz reference clock to phase-lock the internal oscillator.

For high channel count deployable systems, the high pin-count FMC connector can be used with the Pentek Model 5973 3U VPX Virtex-7 FPGA carrier. The company also offers 3316 example code for the Xilinx PCIe FMC 707 Virtex-7 evaluation board as an alternative development scenario.

The Flexor Model 5973 FMC carrier is preconfigured with a suite of built-in functions for data capture, synchronisation, time tagging and formatting, all designed for specific FMC modules, including the Flexor Model 3316. Alongside eight DDCs, these functions remove the effort of integrating FMC and carrier by enabling high performance data capture and transfer modes. This provides a turn-key signal interface for radar, communications, or general data acquisition applications.

“Customers driven to get hundreds of channels of analogue-to-digital in a system often ask, ‘What’s my cost per channel?’,” commented Rodger Hosking, Vice President, Pentek. "The Model 3316 doubles the channel density for a single slot, key to bringing down the cost per channel.”

“FMCs offer a tremendous amount of design flexibility to embedded platforms,” added Hosking, “but bundling with optimised FPGA code on the carrier is critical for fast integration, best performance and advanced features. Pentek IP core functions on the Model 5973 carrier bring out the best capabilities of the Model 3316 FMC.”

The Flexor Model 3316 FMC, which is suitable for air-cooled, conduction-cooled, and rugged operating environments, is priced from $3,495 when purchased with the Model 5973 FMC carrier.