RF digital-to-analog converter for demanding high-speed RF DAC applications

Mouser is stocking the new 16-bit AD9162 digital-to-analog converter (DAC) from Analog Devices. Announced at the 2016 IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS), the device is a high-performance radio frequency (RF) DAC that supports data rates up to 6 gigasamples per second (GSPS) and update rates up to 12GSPS. The high dynamic range and bandwidth make this DAC ideally suited for the most demanding high-speed RF DAC applications, such as broadband communications, wireless communications systems, instrumentation, and radar systems. The device features 75dBc spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) and a maximum DAC update rate of 12GSPS. When in baseband mode, it supports DOCSIS 3.1 cable infrastructure compliance and operates from DC to 2.5GHz. A 2x Interpolator filter (FIR85) allows the DAC to operate at lower data rates and converter clocking. This reduces the overall system power and eases the filtering requirements. When using the device in mix mode, engineers can configure the device to support RF signal synthesis in Nyquist zones 2 and 3, up to 7.5 GHz while maintaining high dynamic range. The output current may be programmed from 15mA to 40mA. The device offers an interface with eight programmable JESD204B lanes, and engineers can use the device’s serial peripheral interface (SPI) to configure the DAC and monitor the readback register status. Mouser is also stocking the Analog Devices AD9162-FMC-EBZ evaluation board, which allows designers to quickly evaluate the features of the high-speed AD9162 RF DAC. The evaluation kit includes an evaluation board with AD9508 1.65GHZ clock fanout buffer and ADF4355 microwave wideband synthesizer, a mini USB cable, and an evaluation software DVD. The AD9162-FMC-EBZ can connect to the ADS7-V1 or ADS7-V2 pattern generator, which automatically formats the data and sends it to the evaluation board. The evaluation software includes the Analysis, Control, Evaluation (ACE) graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI installs the DPG Downloader and its ACE SPI programmer application. The ACE SPI programmer application provides full access to devices’ register map, and the software allows engineers to record, load, and save macros as register sequences to make programming easier.