The Calamine from Per Vices is a 4-Channel Software-Defined Radio (SDR) that operates from DC to 40 GHz. This SDR integrates four receive chains and each chain is integrated with a Texas Instruments’ dual-channel ADC16DX370 ADC, an RF front-end, and a microcontroller, power board, digital board, and timing block. It boasts individual control of each radio chain and supports a unified local oscillator to enhance phase coherence and stability. This radio consists of different RF paths depending on the tuning frequency with one port supporting frequency range from DC to 20 GHz while the other ports supporting frequencies from 20 to 40 GHz. It has an instantaneous bandwidth of up to 300 MHz per chain and is available for all four chains. This SDR is designed for seamless reception and utilizes a modular design consisting of different circuit boards with each board connected using shielded high-speed cabling to support its operation.
The Calamine’s digital board provides the digital processing to power the Calamine receiver and is based on the Altera Arria V ST SoC FPGA, which includes an ARM Cortex-A9 processor on the FPGA. It uses the ARM portion to host the web server through which the Calamine can be configured. The power board of this SDR delivers power to the digital, time, and different receive boards and is integrated to a clock distribution that offers a clean and stable clock distribution network. It achieves a 2 x 10 Gbps backhaul, delivering a total throughput of 20 Gbps for transmitting data between the radio platform and other equipment.
On the receive chains, this SDR can handle an input power of -10 dBm. It requires a DC supply from 120 to 240 V and consumes 200 W of power. This SDR is available in a 2U rack-mount enclosure that measures 482.60 x 500.00 x 87.41 mm and is ideal for radar, test and measurement, ground stations, low latency links, and satellite testing applications.
