Board touts rapid evaluation, prototyping

Texas Instruments Inc. introduces an evaluation module (EVM) that combines TI's fastest 14-bit ADCs in an interleaved fashion with a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA to create a high-speed digitizer solution. The FPGA comes pre-installed with SP Devices' proprietary time-interleaving technology to eliminate interleaving spurs, which enhances performance and facilitates rapid system-level evaluation for wireless communications, military, test and measurement applications.

The EVM joins TI's portfolio of support tools for customers using high-speed data converters in wide-bandwidth applications.

The ADS5474ADX-EVM incorporates two of TI's ADS5474 ADCs, a Xilinx Virtex- 5 FPGA and SP Devices' proprietary time-interleaving technology to deliver an 800-MSPS ADC solution. The SP Devices' software continuously monitors the system and removes ADC gain, clocking and temperature mismatches to reduce the interleaving spurs below the ADC harmonic spurs. By reducing the interleaving spurs, the software increases spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) from 45.78dBc to 86.44dBc for a 70MHz input signal.

In addition to improved performance for these complex systems, the EVM simplifies evaluation and helps designers bring end systems to market faster, says TI. For instance, the continuous monitoring of the ADC's mismatch eliminates the need for an off-line re-calibration routine to account for changes in temperature or other environmental factors, significantly reducing system evaluation and design time.