National Semiconductor claims that its ADC12D1800 is the industry's fastest 12bit ADC. At 3.6Gsample/s (or dual-channel rates of 1.8Gsample/s) it is 3.6 times faster than any other available 12bit device, according to the company. The ADC's dynamic performance of -147dBm/Hz noise floor, 52dB noise power ratio and -61dBFS intermodulation distortion enables a new generation of SDR (software-defined radio) architectures and applications. The company has also added two devices to its ultra-high speed ADC family. The ADC12D1600 has sampling speeds up to 3.2Gsample/s or dual-channel rates of 1.6Gsample/s and the ADC12D1000 is up to 2Gsample/s or dual-channel rates of 1Gsample/s. All three PowerWise ADCs can be used in wideband SDRs including radar, communications, multi-channel set-top box, signal intelligence, and light detecting and ranging applications. For example, in military radar systems, a single ADC12D1X00, combined with a digital down-converter can replace multiple mixers, filters, amplifiers and local oscillator stages used in traditional heterodyne double- or triple-conversion radio implementations. In next-generation multi-channel set-top boxes, one device can replace all of the box's tuners, says the company. Shifting architectures to an SDR implementation reduces board area, power consumption, and cost. The ADCs are supplied in a leaded or lead-free, 292-ball, thermally enhanced BGA package. They use a 1.9V single supply and consist of two channels that can operate interleaved or as independent channels. Circuitry is included for multi-chip synchronisation, programmable gain and offset adjustment per channel. The internal track-and-hold amplifier and extended self-calibration scheme enable a flat response of all dynamic parameters for input frequencies exceeding 2GHz, while providing a low 10 to 18 code error rate. The ADC12D1800 consumes only 2.05W/channel. The ADC12D1600 consumes 1.9W/channel while the ADC12D1000 consumes 1.7W/channel. A space-qualified version in a hermetic 376 column, ceramic column grid array package meets radiation levels of 120MeV for single event latch-up and a total ionising dose of 100krads (Si).
