> > It would be interesting to know what ADC was used and if there's an > > SDR-board out there that uses the same ADC. > > Uh.. I remember John telling me what ADC it was, but I forgot, sorry.
It uses four AD9265s. The TimePod used four LTC2216s, but the AD9265s support higher clock rates with less power consumption, and both of those attributes were important this time around. > I am pretty sure I could design something like the PhaseStation as well. > The working principle is easy and can be explained on a napkin in 5 minutes. > But getting it to this remarkable perfomrance? Not without a lot of > trial and error. And even then, I wouldn't be sure. I don't think there's any way to avoid the trial-and-error part unless you have the luxury of an unlimited ceiling for both the R&D budget and the target retail price, and maybe not even then. One reason it took longer than expected to ship the 53100A was that a lot of lessons that I *thought* had been adequately learned on the 5330A/3120A project didn't pay off when different ADCs were used, and when the carrier and offset frequency requirements grew by 6x and 10x respectively. With the TimePod, for example, noise and spur performance weren't strongly influenced by ADC clock distribution. On PhaseStation, that particular "unlearned lesson" cost me a respin. Keeping parts and manufacturing costs under control was also more difficult than anticipated. Another lesson that wasn't learned soon enough was that a design with four or five internal PCBs ends up being much more expensive than one that uses only two, even if the total board area is similar. We had to increase the price twice to maintain standard T&M industry margins, and (having just come back from visiting Said and Giovanni at Jackson Labs) that's about to happen again. The original vision of a four-figure price tag was unrealistic, and that's definitely a lesson for next time. -- john, KE5FX Miles Design LLC / Jackson Labs Technologies, Inc. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
