Daily Image
10-11-2014
MFAA analog beamformer testboard
| Submitter: | Anne Koster |
| Description: | Presented here is a testboard, hosting the 2013 Mid Frequency Aperture Array (MFAA) beamformer-chip (BFC), designend by Obs. de Nancay, France. NXP in Caen(Fr), provided the QUBIC4Xi bchip process. The latter is qualified as a high-performance technology to design a RF ASIC in the frequency band [400 MHz - 1600 MHz]. The chip is designed to form two beams by means of phase-shift and amplitude control. The integrated circuit includes many differential functions such as low noise amplifiers, switches, polyphase filters, variable gain attenuators and a SPI/I2C interface for the digital control of all settings. This BFC has 16 equally distributed phase steps of 22,5 degrees. Amplitude control of 4.5 dB with 8 equally distributed steps is implemented to accomplish a phase-dependent amplitude variation of less than +/- 0.5 dB. The total power consumption of the BFC is <0.5 Watt with a supply voltage of 3.3 V. The differential input and output impedance matching is 150 ohms. The testboard has been designed by our own Sieds Damstra, whereas all soldering has been done by Anne Koster. PCB manufacturing by our in-house pcb facility, operated by Albert van Duin Great work! |
| Copyright: | ASTRON |
| Tweet |  |