Innovative 2GSPS digitizer reference design reduces time to market for radar, test and communications apps

MILPITAS, USA: Intersil Corp. has introduced the industry's most power-efficient 12-bit, 2 Gigasample/second (GSPS) digitizer reference design, developed to reduce design time for advanced communications, radar and test systems.

Based on Intersil's ISLA112P50 500 Megasample/second (MSPS) converter, the new 2GSPS reference design meets industry requirements for increased sampling speeds, and eliminates artifacts typically caused by interleaved ADCs. Intersil collaborated with SP Devices to develop the new reference design.

The Intersil reference design demonstrates detailed best practices in a known-good system, providing real-time, FPGA-based digital interleave correction of four ISLA112P50 devices. It features significant signal-to-noise and spurious-free dynamic range performance benefits compared with competing 2GSPS ADCs.

The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is 65.5dB at a 190MHz input frequency, which represents an improvement of 6dB over competing solutions. Since SNR does not degrade significantly with higher input frequencies, this performance advantage is maintained over the entire bandwidth of the digitizer.

Spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) is 81.7dBc at a 190MHz input frequency, an improvement of 13dBc. The reference design provides superior SFDR for input frequencies up to 500MHz.
Four 12-Bit 500MSPS ISLA112P50 devices are interleaved to provide 2GSPS. Full power bandwidth is 750MHz, and ADC- and interleave-related power consumption is just 4.1W.