DEMO CIRCUIT 1250 16-BIT HIGH PERFORMANCE ADC DRIVERS QUICK START GUIDE LTM9001 16-bit Receiver Subsystem DESCRIPTION Demonstration circuit 1250 is an evaluation board featuring Linear Technology Corporation's LTM9001 16-bit Receiver Subsystem. DC1250 demonstrates good circuit layout techniques and recommended external circuitry for optimal system performance. DC1250 comes installed with one of Linear Technology's 16-bit LTM9001 amplifier/ADC subsystems. The board includes a wideband input transformer (for evaluation with a single-ended RF signal generator) and output CMOS buffers. The LTM9001 is also capable of gene- rating LVDS outputs - for evaluation of the part with LVDS outputs, obtain DC1241. DC1250 plugs into the DC890 Data Acquisition demo board and the output can be easily analyzed with Linear Technology's PScope data processing software, which is available for no charge on our website at http://www.linear.com. Design files for this circuit board are available. Call the LTC factory. , LTC and LT are registered trademarks of Linear Technology Corporation. QUICK START PROCEDURE Validating the performance of the LTM9001 is simple with DC1250, and requires only an input source, a clock source, a computer, and a lab power supply. Refer to Figure 1 for proper board evaluation equipment setup and follow the procedure below: 1. Connect the power supply as shown in Figure 1. There are on-board low-noise voltage regulators that provide the three supply voltages for the LTM9001. The entire board and all components share a common ground. The power supply should still be a low-noise lab power supply capable of supplying at least 1 Amp. 2. Provide an encode clock to the ADC via SMA connector J3. Use a low-phase-noise clock source such as a filtered RF signal generator or a high-quality clock oscillator. Obtain DC1216 for a low-phase-noise ADC clock source that can plug directly into DC1250. NOTE. Similar to having a noisy input, a high-jitter (phase noise) encode clock will degrade the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the system. Table 1: DC1250 Connectors and Jumpers REFERENCE FUNCTION J1 (AIN+) Board Signal Input. Impedance-matched to 50 for use with lab signal generators. J2 (AIN-) Differential Board Input. Normally not connected. See text for differential-input evalua- J3 (ENC) E1 (EXT REF) JP5 (AMP_EN) JP1 (PGA_GAIN) JP2 (RAND) JP3 (ADC_SHDN) JP4 (DITH) tion methods. Board Clock Input. Impedance-matched to 50. Drive with a low-phase-noise clock oscillator or filtered sine wave signal source. Reference input to adjust the full-scale range of the LTM9001. Connects to the SENSE pin; by default, tied to VDD for internal reference. Enables the LTM9001 amplifier. Default is EN. Selects the input range of LTM9001. Default is LOW (low PGA gain, larger input range) Output Randomizer. NORM is default. Enables the LTM9001 ADC. Default is NORM. ADC Internal Dither. Default is OFF. 3. Apply an input signal to the board. DC1250 allows great flexibility in applying input signals (see the section on Applying Input Signals). For best results, use a low distortion, low noise signal generator with sufficient filtering to avoid degrading the performance of the amplifier and ADC. 4. Observe the ADC output with demo circuit DC890, a USB cable, a Windows computer, and Linear Technology's Pscope data processing software. 1 LTM9001 16-BIT RECEIVER SUBSYSTEM Power Supply (3.8V-6V @ 1.0A) NOTE. Even a high-quality signal synthesizer will still have noise and harmonics that should be attenuated with a low-pass or band-pass filter. For good-quality high order filters, see TTE, Lark Engineering, or equivalent. Signal Generator HP 8644B or equiv. To DC890 BPF RF Signal Generator (HP 8644B) or other low phase noise clock source (e.g. DC1216) BPF Figure 1. Proper Evaluation Equipment Setup ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Although the DC1250 demo board is ready to use on delivery, it has additional flexibility built in for various types of input networks. Below is some information about configuring DC1250 to meet the specific needs of your evaluation. APPLYING INPUT SIGNALS The input network consists of various components designed to allow either single-ended or differential inputs, AC-coupled or DC-coupled. Table 2 shows some possible input configurations, and which components to install. LTM9001 is designed for excellent performance with both single-ended and differential input drive, with little difference in distortion performance. When using DC-coupled inputs, the inputs to DC1250 need to be lev- 2 el-shifted to within the input common-mode limits in the datasheet. Table 2: DC1250 Input Configuration Guide CONFIGURATION COMPONENTS NECESSARY No change. Transformer T1 acts as a balun for Single-Ended Input differential drive. AC-Coupled (Default Setup) Remove T1, replace with 0 jumpers. May need Single-Ended Input to install impedance-matching resistor at R4 No Transformer or R1/R7. AC-Coupled Same as above. Change C1 and C8 to 0 jumSingle-Ended Input pers. Inputs must be within the commonNo Transformer mode voltage limits of LTM9001. DC-Coupled Differential Inputs Remove R7 and install R5. T1 and C1/C8 can be replaced with 0 for DC coupling. NOTE. When driving the ADC driver with a direct DC-coupled path, increased input bias currents may occur due to the amplifier's input impedance. See the LTM9001 datasheet for more details. LTM9001 16-BIT RECEIVER SUBSYSTEM OUTPUT DATA FORMAT OTHER BOARD CIRCUITRY The default output format for DC1250 is demultiplexed CMOS output mode, which alternates the digital outputs coming out of the LTM9001 "A" and "B" channels. The first output word is shifted out of the "A" channel, the second word out of the "B" channel, and so on. Thus each channel is updating at half the data rate. By default, DC890 and PSCOPE read the board in demultiplexed CMOS mode. Device U5 is an EEPROM that is used by the PScope software to identify the board and apply the correct settings for the data collection. Removing resistor R19 on the DC1250 would ground the LVDS pin, and the digital outputs would all come out of channel "A" at the full data rate. However, PSCOPE is not currently set up to read the data this way. When using the outputs in full-data-rate mode, you must manually configure PSCOPE (see Figure 2) to 2-channel mode, and ignore the "B" channel display in PSCOPE. USING PSCOPE SOFTWARE PScope, downloadable from Linear Technology's website http://www.linear.com/, processes data from the DC890 FastDAACS board and displays FFT and signal analysis information on the computer screen. The on-board EEPROM U5 should enable automatic board detection and auto-configuration of the software, but if the user wishes to change the settings, they can easily do so. From the Configure menu in the toolbar, uncheck "Autodetect Device". The default settings are shown in Figure 2. The LTM9001 also has an output randomizer, which the user needs to select if it is enabled on the board (under a different menu option). The software will automatically un-randomize the output by performing an exclusive-OR with each bit and the LSB. Figure 2. Entering the correct device information for your ADC. Select the correct parameters for the DC1250. Under normal conditions, PSCOPE should automatically recognize the board and adjust the software settings accordingly. 3 LTM9001 16-BIT RECEIVER SUBSYSTEM DC1250 Schematic (Separated into 2 pages) 4 LTM9001 16-BIT RECEIVER SUBSYSTEM 5