CNPEM LNLS web

Red Hot PCB: RF digitizer focused in mezzanine for FPGA boards

By The MacroFab Team  |  September 15, 2017

This week’s Red Hot PCB is an RF digitizer for signals from an accelerated electron beam that will be used in an instrumentation system known as “Sirius”. Sirius is a 4th generationBrazilian Synchrotron Light Source that is part of the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) – a private, non-profit, research and development institution.

CNPEM LNLS web 1024x727

CNPEM LNLS web 1024x727

This beautiful board is known as an FMC250 that is a form factor and pin assignment standard focused in mezzanine for FPGA boards. It has four 16-bit channels up to 250 MS/s sampling rate, and is optimized for signals between 450-500 Mhz. The board operates mainly in subsampling mode and also generates its own reference clock that can be sourced from the front panel or from FMC pins CLK2_BIDIR and CLK3_BIDIR. The FMC pin CLK_DIR is connected to 3P3V via a 10KΩ pull up resistor to indicate that the CLK2_BIDIR and CLK3_BIDIR are driven from the carrier to the FMC mezzanine. These boards will be tested using a Rhode & Schwartz SMA100 generator for both signal and clock, and also a carrier FPGA board to acquire data and supply power. The Sirius instrumentation system will need 300 of these boards to operate!

Thank you to Gustavo Bruno with CNPEM-LNLS for his contribution on this week’s post!

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