© 2018 SignalCore, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Hardware Manual
SC5309A & SC5310A
2.5 GHz RF Downconverter
www.signalcore.com
Page 1: ...2018 SignalCore Inc All Rights Reserved Hardware Manual SC5309A SC5310A 2 5 GHz RF Downconverter www signalcore com...
Page 2: ...l Connections 8 Device LED Indicators 10 Communication and Supply Connection 10 Mini USB Connection 11 Reset Button Pin Hole 12 3 Functional Description 13 Overview 13 The Signal Chain 14 The RF Input...
Page 3: ...CE_CLOCK 28 Register 0x19 REFERENCE_DAC 29 Register 0x1A FREQ_PLAN_PARAM 29 Register 0x1B SYNTH_MODE 2 Bytes 30 Register 0x1C SYNTH_SELF_CAL 30 Register 0x1D USER_EEPROM_WRITE 31 Query Registers 31 Re...
Page 4: ...the Device Via RS232 4 Reading from the Device Via RS232 5 PXI Express 5 Setting Up the PCI to Serial Bridge 5 Writing to the Device 6 Reading from the Device 6 6 Calibration 7 Calibration EEPROM Map...
Page 5: ...CUSTOMER S RIGHT TO RECOVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY FAULT OR NEGLIGENCE ON THE PART OF SIGNALCORE INCORPORATED SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT THERETOFORE PAID BY THE CUSTOMER SIGNALCORE INCORPORATED WILL NO...
Page 6: ...rdous materials must be explicitly declared Each of those materials and the categorical amount present in our products are shown below Lead Pb Mercury Hg Cadmium Cd Hexavalent Chromium Cr VI Polybromi...
Page 7: ...EMS HARDWARE AND OR SOFTWARE UNANTICIPATED USES OR MISUSES OR ERRORS ON THE PART OF THE USER OR APPLICATIONS DESIGNER ADVERSE FACTORS SUCH AS THESE ARE HEREAFTER COLLECTIVELY TERMED SYSTEM FAILURES AN...
Page 8: ...l SignalCore products in their original antistatic bags Remove the product from its packaging and inspect it for loose components or any signs of damage Notify SignalCore immediately if the product ap...
Page 9: ...C5310A Hardware Manual SignalCore Inc 8 SC5309A SC5310A Hardware Manual Front Interface Indicators and Connectors The SC5309A is a PXIe based RF downconverter with all user I O located on the front fa...
Page 10: ...eper cleaning is necessary use lint free swabs and isopropyl alcohol to gently clean inside the connector barrel and the external threads Do not mate connectors until the alcohol has completely evapor...
Page 11: ...rectly Off No supply or supply error Table 2 Active Indicator LED Color Description Green An external interface port has accessed the device Red Input supply voltage exceeded Off No current interface...
Page 12: ...9 RX MOSE RX DTE for RS232 or MISO for SPI 30 SRDY This pin is serial ready for SPI Mini USB Connection This is a mini USB Type B connector for USB communication with the device using the standard USB...
Page 13: ...le is the reset button which is only available on the SC5310A Using a pin to lightly depress this momentary action push button switch will cause a hard reset to the device putting it back to its defau...
Page 14: ...ly Module The downconverter has a maximum of three conversion stages The first converted intermediate frequency IF stage is called IF1 whose signal is converted from the RF input signal The second con...
Page 15: ...n referred to as the signal chain which is shown on the system block drawing in Figure 4 The RF Input All RF connectors are high quality female stainless steel SMA types rated to 18 GHz of operation T...
Page 16: ...ier is enabled Turning on this amplifier is recommended to improve the signal to noise dynamic range DRSNR when expected signal levels are lower than 30 dBm The typical maximum gain of the downconvert...
Page 17: ...to optimally reject leakages inside their passband or within their filter slope This LO1 leakage will mix with the converted IF1 signals or with LO2 to produce higher order unwanted in band spurs that...
Page 18: ...especially for those frequencies that are less than the BW of BPF0 The Third mixer and IF3 Path The third IF IF3 is tunable from 5 MHz to 100 MHz as LO3 is tuned from 220 MHz to 420 MHz in 5 MHz steps...
Page 19: ...the gain should be shifted to the RF input path of the device before the mixer The RF pre amplifier should be enabled if necessary and or RF attenuation reduced The IF3 attenuator is then used to adju...
Page 20: ...base reference whenever an external reference source is not used When an external reference is selected as the base clock by enabling the device to phase lock to it the effect only occurs when the pre...
Page 21: ...normally fixed at 3 32 GHz by it may be set via the frequency plan to tune between 3 1 GHz and 3 45 GHz in 5 MHz frequency steps LO2 drives the second mixer of the signal chain Its frequency is indire...
Page 22: ...ed on board their voltages are regulated and actively filtered to keep noise to a minimum Thus these downconverters are tolerant to dirty external power supplies 8V 5V 3 3V 5V To LO SignalChain Module...
Page 23: ...rpret the incoming data leaving the device in a stalled state The total number of bytes is the sum of the register address 1 Byte and its corresponding data bytes For example to set the RF frequency v...
Page 24: ...N_PARAM 0x1A 7 0 Frequency word Hz 7 0 15 8 Frequency word Hz 15 8 23 16 Frequency word Hz 23 16 31 24 Frequency word Hz 31 24 39 32 Frequency word Hz 39 32 47 40 Frequency word Hz 47 40 55 48 Set to...
Page 25: ...1 WO Unused 7 Set to zeros 7 0 RO Read back byte 8 Read 1 byte back is required for PXIe and RS232 Register 0x10 RF_FREQUENCY This register tunes the device to the input RF frequency Bytes written 8...
Page 26: ...read 1 Bits Type Name Width Description 0 W Frequency word 1 0 Disables the RF amplifier 1 Enables the RF amplifier 7 1 W Unused 7 Set to zeros 7 0 R Read back byte 8 Read 1 byte back is required for...
Page 27: ...1 0 Selects the IF2 filter 0 1 Selects the IF2 filter 1 custom option 2 W invertSpectrum 1 0 Not spectral inversion 1 IF3 spectrum inverted w r t RF 3 W Bypass_rf_conversion 1 0 RF is converted to IF...
Page 28: ...will change the state of the RF amplifier to provide the best device configuration to meet the input parameter requirements 4 3 W linearMode 2 0 Best signal to noise SNR least linear 1 Better SNR suf...
Page 29: ...ead back byte 8 Read 1 byte back is required for PXIe and RS232 Register 0x17 DEVICE_STANDBY This register sets either the entire device or sections of the device into standby mode Placing a section i...
Page 30: ...back byte 8 Read 1 byte back is required for PXIe and RS232 Register 0x19 REFERENCE_DAC This register makes adjustments to the 10 MHz TCXO accuracy via DAC to its tuning port Bytes written 4 Bytes re...
Page 31: ...r synthesizers It also enables or disables faster tuning of the YIG based oscillator of LO1 Bytes written 2 Bytes read 1 Bits Type Name Width Description 1 0 WO Loop Gain 2 0 Low loop gain improves ph...
Page 32: ...eturn while others do not need any For example the register GET_DEVICE_PARAM 0x30 returns the RF Frequency IF1 Frequency IF3 Frequency etc the data returned depends on the parameter value of the instr...
Page 33: ...ce parameter to query from the device Bytes written 2 Bytes read 8 Bits Type Name Width Description 3 0 W Parameter 1 0 Returns current RF frequency 1 Current IF1 frequency 2 Current IF2 frequency 3 C...
Page 34: ...ad 8 Bits Type Name Width Description 7 0 W Unused 7 Set to zeros 0 R Pll status LO1 sum 1 The summing PLL of LO1 1 R Pll status LO1 crs 1 The coarse tuning PLL of LO1 2 R Pll status LO1 fine 1 The fi...
Page 35: ...ainEnable 1 19 R autoGainEnable 1 Auto calc of gain enabled default 0 Software gain calculation used 1 Gain can be read back from device less accurate 63 20 R Invalid data 29 Ignore Register 0x23 GET_...
Page 36: ...ress Bytes written 4 Bytes read 8 Bits Type Name Width Description 15 0 W Address 16 Starting EEPROM address 23 16 W Unused 8 Zeros 63 0 R Data 64 8 bytes of data LSB is the byte at the start address...
Page 37: ...eros zeros SC Gain SC Config Frequency parameter values Frequency parameter values are returned in the first 7 bytes with the last byte padded with zeros The least significant bit LSB is 1 1000 Hertz...
Page 38: ...ial number as an unsigned 32 bit integer Byte 4 contains the interface as represented in the following table Table 8 Interface ID Bit Description 0 PXI PXIe 1 USB 2 SPI 3 RS232 7 4 Undefined Revision...
Page 39: ...2018 SignalCore Inc All Rights Reserved Section 2 Communication Interfaces and Calibration...
Page 40: ...1 Frequency is sent in 1000th of Hertz so the data that represents the frequency is 2 500 000 000 000 milli Hertz 2 This number can be represented by a 64 bit unsigned long and in Hexadecimal is 0x 0...
Page 41: ...re pin must be asserted low for the entire duration of a register transfer Once a full transfer has been received the device will proceed to process the command and de assert low the SRDY pin The stat...
Page 42: ...s depends on the register being targeted The first byte sent is the register address and subsequent bytes contain the data associated with the register As data from the host is being transferred to th...
Page 43: ...15200 upon reset or power up Data bits The number of bits in the data is fixed at 8 Parity Parity is 0 zero Stop bits 1 stop bit Flow control 0 zero or none Only 3 wire RS232 is required since hardwar...
Page 44: ...icates with the onboard microcontroller serially The interface on the bridge chip resides at offset addresses between 0x00 and 0xFF from BAR0 which is memory mapped A kernel level driver for the opera...
Page 45: ...device register The first byte sent is the device register address followed by the most significant byte of the register s associated data When a device register is fully written that is all its data...
Page 46: ...cies 5 10 15 100 in MHz 0x510 21 84 Float_32 IF3 relative gain response to the IF set for absolute RF gain measurement 0x72C 30 120 Float_32 Relative If3_atten 1 1 30 dB 1 dB step 0x7A4 30 120 Float_3...
Page 47: ...dB IF2 Filter setting is 0 Inverted spectrum set to 0 RF amplifier disabled set to 0 IF frequency is set at user specific setting or defaults to 50 MHz RF is tuned to the list frequencies 5 10 20 90...
Page 48: ...h we shall call _ 6 The gain for this configuration is calculated using 2 3_ 1 3 1 If the current device temperature is different from the calibration temperature the gain correction due to temperatur...
Page 49: ...ware Manual Revision Table Revision Revision Date Description 1 0 8 10 18 Initial Release 1 1 2 26 19 Added feature to signal path register 16 Changed figure 6 to reflect latest conversion path implem...
