Publication No. REF-000-009-R00
Red Rapids
Page 15
4.3 Generating Characterization Plots
The wide dynamic range and input bandwidth characteristics of the receiver levy strict
signal conditioning requirements on test equipment used to characterize board
performance. Even the highest quality general purpose RF signal generators output
harmonics and noise that must be reduced in order to accurately characterize system
performance. Generally a narrow bandpass filter is inserted between the signal generator
output and the Adapter Module receiver input. The bandpass filter should be reasonably
narrow to eliminate generator harmonics and limit the amount of generator phase noise
input into the receiver. Red Rapids’ characterization plots were created using 5%
bandwidth 7-section Chebyshev filters with > 55 dB of stop band rejection. We used filters
from TTE such as their KC7t-70m-3.5m-50-720a. Table 4-1 contains a list of test
equipment used to generate the characterization plots of section 4.0. The characterization
frequency plots were generated by performing a 32k FFT on 32k data samples collected
from the receiver.
Sample Clock
Source
Signal
Source
Receiver
Bandpass
Figure 4-17 Characterization Setup
Use a narrow bandpass filter between the signal generator
and receiver card to accurately characterize system.
Table 4-1 Characterization Test Equipment
Function
Part Number
Manufacturer
Sample Clock Source
HP8648B
Agilent
Signal Bandpass Filter (one of several) KC7t-70m-3.5m-50-720a
TTE
Signal Source
HP8648B
Agilent