EC14150 – 150 MS/s, 14 bit, 2 Channel, ExpressCard 54, Digitizer Card

The EC14150 (EC) is a dual channel waveform capture board that provides a remarkable combination of high speed and high resolution sampling along with a very large memory capacity all in a very compact and low power consuming ExpressCard form factor. At 4.5 W, the EC represents one of the lowest power consuming digitizer cards ever created for its class. Signal frequencies up to 200 MHz can be accurately captured either in baseband or in higher order Nyquist zones using under-sampling techniques.

The EC is an ExpressCard 54 mm sized compliant board equipped with standard ‘Plug and Play’ features common in PCI systems. The entire 512 MB memory may be used as an exceptionally large FIFO for acquiring data directly to the ExpressCard bus continuously non stop (referred to as “EC Continuous Record Mode”) or in the more simpler 2-step block acquisition to RAM and transfer to PC modes. In either the EC Continuous Record Mode (where the 512 RAM FIFO is used) or Data Transfer Mode; the EC card is capable of sustaining 180 megabyte/sec transfers over the ExpressCard bus interface. Significant test data has shown that recordings with this large 512 MB FIFO buffering the recording process can be continuous at up to 90 MSPS even when operating in traditional non real-time environments such as the Windows operating system.

The EC was designed to maximize the quality of the captured signal in terms of signal-to-noise ratio and spurious-free dynamic range over a very wide frequency range. A 24 dB amplifier/attenuator circuit is at the input of both analog channels, where 20 dB of amplification and 4 dB of attenuation are available for selection in steps of 1 dB. Both input channels implement a transformer coupled input for best possible signal performance.

A frequency synthesized clock allows the ADC sampling rate to be set to virtually any clock value up to 150 MHz, offering maximum flexibility for sampling rate selection. This frequency selection flexibility comes at no cost to the acquisition clock quality/performance when locked to either the onboard 10 MHz, 5 PPM reference clock or to an externally provided 10 MHz reference clock via the onboard clock input connector. This same sync clock input connector can also be used for applying an external clock to the onboard EC ADCs.

The EC can be set to trigger from the input data channels, the external trigger signal input or via software command. The EC supports single shot, segmented, and pretrigger triggering modes.


Product Specifications


Product: EC14150 Full Data Sheet
Update: Revision 1.03 - 04/20/2009
File Size: 227 KB



External Signal Connections
     Analog Input, Channel 1: MMCX (miniature RF)
     Analog Input, Channel 2: MMCX
     Clock Input: MMCX
     Trigger Input: MMCX
     Digital Input / Output: MMCX
 
Analog Inputs
     Full Scale Voltage Ranges: 100 mVp-p to 3 Vp-p (1 dB increments)
     Impedance: 50 ohms
     Bandwidth: 200 MHz (LP filter)
     Coupling: AC
 
External Trigger
     Signal Type: digital, TTL signal level
     Impedance: >10k ohms
     Bandwidth: 50 MHz
 
Internal Synthesized Clock
     Frequency Range: 45.0 - 150 MHz
     Resolution: better than 5 PPM
     Accuracy: better than 5 PPM
     Unsettable Ranges: 128.9-129.8, 140.6-142.8 MHz
 
External Clock
     Signal Type: sine wave or square wave
     Coupling: AC
     Impedance: 50 ohms
     Frequency: 10 MHz to 150 MHz
     Amplitude: 100 mV p-p to 2.0 V p-p
 
Post ADC Clock Divider
     Divider Settings: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32
 
Reference Clock
     Internal: 10.0 MHz, +/- 5 ppm max.
     External: 10.0 MHz, +/- 50 ppm max (required for lock)
 
Digital Input / Output
     Type: TTL Logic Level (standard)
     Max. Frequency: 200 MHz
     Connection: 50 ohms to FPGA I/O
 
Digitizer
     Resolution: 14 bits
     Aperture Jitter: 0.07 pS typical
     Clock Rate: 45 to 150 MHz
 
Trigger Modes
     Post Trigger: single start trigger fills active memory
     Pretrigger: single trigger stops acquisition
     Segmented: start trigger for each memory segment
 
Trigger Options
     Pretrigger Samples: samples prior to trigger are stored; Single Channel: 8k max.; Dual Channel: 4k max per channel
 
     Delayed Trigger: delay from trigger to data storage; Up to 64k digitizer clock cycles
 
Memory
     Active Size: Up to 256 MegaSamples
     Segment Size: Up to 128 MegaSamples
     Segment Re-Arm Time: 150 nanoseconds
     Addressing: DMA transfers from starting address
 
I/O Addressing
     PCI Controller Address: 64 bytes, Plug and Play selected
     Control/Status Registers: 32 bytes, Plug and Play selected
 
Performance
     SFDR: 80dB, 1 to 50 MHz
78dB @ 100 MHz
77dB @ 170 MHz
 
     SNR (1-200 MHz): 67dB @ 20dB gain
66dB @ 10dB gain
65dB @ 0dB gain
 
Power Requirements
     +3.3V: 1.5 Amps max.
 
Absolute Maximum Ratings
     Analog Inputs: +/- 5 volts
     Trigger Input: -0.2 to +4.0 volts DC
     Clock Input: 5 volts peak to peak
     Ambient Temperature: 0 to 50C