1,851 research outputs found
Basics of RF electronics
RF electronics deals with the generation, acquisition and manipulation of
high-frequency signals. In particle accelerators signals of this kind are
abundant, especially in the RF and beam diagnostics systems. In modern machines
the complexity of the electronics assemblies dedicated to RF manipulation, beam
diagnostics, and feedbacks is continuously increasing, following the demands
for improvement of accelerator performance. However, these systems, and in
particular their front-ends and back-ends, still rely on well-established basic
hardware components and techniques, while down-converted and acquired signals
are digitally processed exploiting the rapidly growing computational capability
offered by the available technology. This lecture reviews the operational
principles of the basic building blocks used for the treatment of
high-frequency signals. Devices such as mixers, phase and amplitude detectors,
modulators, filters, switches, directional couplers, oscillators, amplifiers,
attenuators, and others are described in terms of equivalent circuits,
scattering matrices, transfer functions; typical performance of commercially
available models is presented. Owing to the breadth of the subject, this review
is necessarily synthetic and non-exhaustive. Readers interested in the
architecture of complete systems making use of the described components and
devoted to generation and manipulation of the signals driving RF power plants
and cavities may refer to the CAS lectures on Low-Level RF.Comment: 36 pages, contribution to the CAS - CERN Accelerator School:
Specialised Course on RF for Accelerators; 8 - 17 Jun 2010, Ebeltoft, Denmar
Ultra-pure digital sideband separation at sub-millimeter wavelengths
Deep spectral-line surveys in the mm and sub-mm range can detect thousands of
lines per band uncovering the rich chemistry of molecular clouds, star forming
regions and circumstellar envelopes, among others objects. The ability to study
the faintest features of spectroscopic observation is, nevertheless, limited by
a number of factors. The most important are the source complexity (line
density), limited spectral resolution and insufficient sideband (image)
rejection (SRR). Dual Sideband (2SB) millimeter receivers separate upper and
lower sideband rejecting the unwanted image by about 15 dB, but they are
difficult to build and, until now, only feasible up to about 500 GHz
(equivalent to ALMA Band 8). For example ALMA Bands 9 (602-720 GHz) and 10
(787-950 GHz) are currently DSB receivers. Aims: This article reports the
implementation of an ALMA Band 9 2SB prototype receiver that makes use of a new
technique called calibrated digital sideband separation. The new method
promises to ease the manufacturing of 2SB receivers, dramatically increase
sideband rejection and allow 2SB instruments at the high frequencies currently
covered only by Double Sideband (DSB) or bolometric detectors. Methods: We made
use of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and fast Analog to Digital
Converters (ADCs) to measure and calibrate the receiver's front end phase and
amplitude imbalances to achieve sideband separation beyond the possibilities of
purely analog receivers. The technique could in principle allow the operation
of 2SB receivers even when only imbalanced front ends can be built,
particularly at very high frequencies. Results: This digital 2SB receiver shows
an average sideband rejection of 45.9 dB while small portions of the band drop
below 40 dB. The performance is 27 dB (a factor of 500) better than the average
performance of the proof-of-concept Band 9 purely-analog 2SB prototype
receiver.Comment: 5 page
Low-noise 0.8-0.96- and 0.96-1.12-THz superconductor-insulator-superconductor mixers for the Herschel Space Observatory
Heterodyne mixers incorporating Nb SIS junctions and NbTiN-SiO/sub 2/-Al microstrip tuning circuits offer the lowest reported receiver noise temperatures to date in the 0.8-0.96- and 0.96-1.12-THz frequency bands. In particular, improvements in the quality of the NbTiN ground plane of the SIS devices' on-chip microstrip tuning circuits have yielded significant improvements in the sensitivity of the 0.96-1.12-THz mixers relative to previously presented results. Additionally, an optimized RF design incorporating a reduced-height waveguide and suspended stripline RF choke filter offers significantly larger operating bandwidths than were obtained with mixers that incorporated full-height waveguides near 1 THz. Finally, the impact of junction current density and quality on the performance of the 0.8-0.96-THz mixers is discussed and compared with measured mixer sensitivities, as are the relative sensitivities of the 0.8-0.96- and 0.96-1.12-THz mixers
Submillimeter satellite radiometer Final engineering report
All solid-state superheterodyne Dicke radiometer for submillimeter wavelength
Digital compensation of the side-band-rejection ratio in a fully analog 2SB sub-millimeter receiver
In observational radio astronomy, sideband-separating receivers are
preferred, particularly under high atmospheric noise, which is usually the case
in the sub-millimeter range. However, obtaining a good rejection ratio between
the two sidebands is difficult since, unavoidably, imbalances in the different
analog components appear. We describe a method to correct these imbalances
without making any change in the analog part of the sideband-separating
receiver, specifically, keeping the intermediate-frequency hybrid in place.
This opens the possibility of implementing the method in any existing receiver.
We have built hardware to demonstrate the validity of the method and tested it
on a fully analog receiver operating between 600 and 720GHz. We have tested the
stability of calibration and performance vs time and after full resets of the
receiver. We have performed an error analysis to compare the digital
compensation in two configurations of analog receivers, with and without
intermediate frequency (IF) hybrid. An average compensated sideband rejection
ratio of 46dB is obtained. Degradation of the compensated sideband rejection
ratio on time and after several resets of the receiver is minimal. A receiver
with an IF hybrid is more robust to systematic errors. Moreover, we have shown
that the intrinsic random errors in calibration have the same impact for
configuration without IF hybrid and for a configuration with IF hybrid with
analog rejection ratio better than 10dB. Compensated rejection ratios above
40dB are obtained even in the presence of high analog rejection. The method is
robust allowing its use under normal operational conditions at any telescope.
We also demonstrate that a full analog receiver is more robust against
systematic errors. Finally, the error bars associated to the compensated
rejection ratio are almost independent of whether IF hybrid is present or not
Development of the ALMA-North America Sideband-Separating SIS Mixers
As the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) nears completion,
73 dual-polarization receivers have been delivered for each of Bands 3 (84-116
GHz) and 6 (211-275 GHz). The receivers use sideband-separating superconducting
Nb/Al-AlOx/Nb tunnel-junction (SIS) mixers, developed for ALMA to suppress
atmospheric noise in the image band. The mixers were designed taking into
account dynamic range, input return loss, and signal-to-image conversion (which
can be significant in SIS mixers). Typical SSB receiver noise temperatures in
Bands 3 and 6 are 30 K and 60 K, resp., and the image rejection is typically 15
dB.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., June 2013. 10 pages,
21 figure
Submillimeter satellite radiometer first semiannual engineering progress report
Development of 560 GHz fourth harmonic mixer and 140 GHz third harmonic generator for use in radiomete
In-field Built-in Self-test for Measuring RF Transmitter Power and Gain
abstract: RF transmitter manufacturers go to great extremes and expense to ensure that their product meets the RF output power requirements for which they are designed. Therefore, there is an urgent need for in-field monitoring of output power and gain to bring down the costs of RF transceiver testing and ensure product reliability. Built-in self-test (BIST) techniques can perform such monitoring without the requirement for expensive RF test equipment. In most BIST techniques, on-chip resources, such as peak detectors, power detectors, or envelope detectors are used along with frequency down conversion to analyze the output of the design under test (DUT). However, this conversion circuitry is subject to similar process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) variations as the DUT and affects the measurement accuracy. So, it is important to monitor BIST performance over time, voltage and temperature, such that accurate in-field measurements can be performed.
In this research, a multistep BIST solution using only baseband signals for test analysis is presented. An on-chip signal generation circuit, which is robust with respect to time, supply voltage, and temperature variations is used for self-calibration of the BIST system before the DUT measurement. Using mathematical modelling, an analytical expression for the output signal is derived first and then test signals are devised to extract the output power of the DUT. By utilizing a standard 180nm IBM7RF CMOS process, a 2.4GHz low power RF IC incorporated with the proposed BIST circuitry and on-chip test signal source is designed and fabricated. Experimental results are presented, which show this BIST method can monitor the DUT’s output power with +/- 0.35dB accuracy over a 20dB power dynamic range.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Electrical Engineering 201
Characterization of low-noise quasi-optical SIS mixers for the submillimeter band
We report on the development of low-noise quasi-optical SIS mixers for the frequency range 400-850 GHz. The mixers utilize twin-slot antennas, two-junction tuning circuits, and Nb-trilayer junctions. Fourier-transform spectrometry has been used to verify that the frequency response of the devices is well predicted by computer simulations. The 400-850 GHz frequency band can be covered with four separate fixed-tuned mixers. We measure uncorrected double-sideband receiver noise temperatures around 5hν/kB to 700 GHz, and better than 540 K at 808 GHz. These results are among the best reported to date for broadband heterodyne receivers
Production Test Technique For RF Circuits Using Embedded Test Sensors
A single test stimulus and a simple test configuration with embedded envelope detectors are used to estimate all the specification values of interest for an RF circuit under test in an integrated circuit chip. Envelope detectors are deployed as sensors inside the circuit under test. Where more than one circuit is in an RF device in the integrated circuit, each RF circuit in the device may have its own envelope detector. A signal having, for example, time-varying envelopes is used as an optimized test stimulus. The test uses the time-varying and low frequency envelope of the test response. The circuit's response under test to the optimized test stimulus has features highly correlated with the specifications of interest. The test stimulus is optimized for a set of training circuits, and each training circuit in the set is selected to provide one of a spectrum of test responses to the stimulus.Georgia Tech Research Corporatio
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