Altera, TI speed RF design with dev kit for Arria V FPGAs

Clive Maxfield

June 19, 2012

Clive Maxfield

At the International Microwave Symposium, Altera and TI introduced a complete RF development kit that eases RF prototyping for systems based on Altera’s 28-nm Arria V FPGAs.

The modular Arria V FPGA RF Development Kit includes all the hardware and software needed for RF transmit, receive and digital pre-distortion feedback, reducing the amount of time needed to design and verify RF systems, such as wireless base stations, remote radio heads, and military radio and intelligence equipment, from months to weeks.

The Arria V FPGA RF Development Kit provides RF developers with access to the latest generation of 28-nm FPGAs from Altera, along with the newest analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), digital-to-analog converters (DACs) and clocks from TI. The kit provides 2.5 times more transmit and digital pre-distortion feedback bandwidth than similar solutions and is the industry’s first complete main/diversity receive development platform supporting up to 75 MHz of bandwidth.

Features and benefits of the Arria V FPGA RF Development Kit:

• 28-nm Arria V FPGA, balancing cost and performance while delivering the lowest total power for wireless applications.
• Up to 500 MHz of transmit and feedback bandwidth, enabling 100 MHz of transmit bandwidth with fifth order pre-distortion correction.
• Up to 75 MHz of main/diversity receive bandwidth with 14-bit resolution and 31.5 dB of gain range for demanding multi-carrier 3G and 4G standards.
• Low phase-noise-fractional phase-locked loop (PLL) / voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) to provide local oscillator for transmit, receive and feedback mixers and modulators.
• Modular design enables alternative and future evaluation modules (EVMs) to be incorporated quickly and seamlessly.

The Arria V FPGA RF Development Kit includes the Arria V FPGA Development Board and the following RF components from TI:

• TSW30H84EVM, a complete RF transmit reference design including the DAC34H84, the industry’s lowest-power 4-channel, 16-bit DAC at 1.25 GSPS.
• TSW1266EVM, a digital pre-distortion feedback reference design.
• TSW1265EVM, a wideband dual-receiver reference design, which includes the ADS4249, the industry’s lowest-power dual, 14-bit ADC.  
• TSW3065EVM, a standalone local oscillator source designed with the TRF3765 integer and fractional PLL/VCO.
• HSMC-ADC-Bridge and ArriaV-TI-Adapter to interface between TI and Altera hardware.

Availability and pricing
The Arria V FPGA RF Development Kit can be ordered today from Arrow Electronics for US$6,299.

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