Sundance Gears-Up To Enable Next Generation Ground And Air Communications Services With e2v

Already used as the environment of choice for High Speed Direct IF by some of the world’s leading electronics companies, the SMT8121 delivers 1Gsps sustained performance and features high performance, low power FPGAs and DSPs connected to multi-channel high speed data converters from e2v. The SMT8121 is a modular system comprising e2v’s AT84AD001BCTD Dual 8-bit 1Gsps ADC, multiple Xilinx Virtex II Pro and Virtex 4 FPGAs, TI C64 DSP and DAC technology from Fujitsu. Used for multi-carrier/ multi-standard cellular systems, high direct-IF infrastructures, radar systems and test equipment the SMT8121 provides two input and two output channels each sampling at 1Gsps.

“In the SMT8121 we have a platform that is geared to supporting an array of next generation communications services and roadmap applications for the hand-set manufactures and cellular base-station providers”, said Flemming Christensen, managing director of Sundance Multiprocessor Technology Ltd. “The SMT8121 supports the drive for a Software Defined Radio platform that can handle Direct IF, and its low power and high performance mean it is a practical solution in environments that range from the boardroom to the battlefield. With plans now confirmed for airlines to offer mobile communication services we are also seeing interest from the developers of advanced in-flight communications systems.”

With the SMT8121 focused on applications where fast sampling speed (up to 2Gsps), flat spectral output , high input analog bandwidth and very low power consumption are key factors, the dual channel ADC data converter from e2v technologies was selected by Sundance developers. The e2v solution not only met the GHz performance and low power specification needed for the SMT8121, but also provided a user-friendly serial programming (3-wire) interface for rapid design and set-up over a range of target markets including aerospace, defense and satellite.

“Our fast GHz ADC technology has provided a benchmark for design flexibility, ease-of-use and performance for numerous applications including software radio, test equipment and communications” said Andrew Benn, Product Marketing Manager at e2v. “e2v continues to provide technology leadership with higher performance and greater design flexibility with the Quad 8-bit 5Gsps ADC. The investment made by Sundance in our ADC technology is testament not only to the technical performance of our solutions but also the cost advantage we provide in very high performance systems.”

The SMT8121 is fully supported and supplied with the 3L Diamond design environment that allows the user to easily and efficiently implement algorithms on any of the available DSPs, FPGAs and PowerPCs. Host-side software interface to the PC is included and the solution is supported by TI’s Code Composer Studio.

Available immediately from Sundance, the SMT8121 provides maximum flexibility and field upgradability to a range of FPGA and DSP parts. The SMT8121 maintains the legacy tradition of Sundance’s forward and backwards compatibility.