What is an RF Digitizer?
A digitizer is a device that converts an analog signal to a digital signal. It can be directly related to Analog to Digital Converters (ADCs) as digitizers have multiple ADCs with added functionalities such as buffer memory and programming capability. Digitizers usually have multiple channels, and each channel of digitizer has one ADC module. The digitizer can acquire, store, and sends these multiple channels of data for further data processing.
Digitizers can have multiple features and functionalities which determine the additional tasks that it can perform. It is up to the manufacturer to decide how diverse they want a given digitizer to perform. However, there are a few critical parameters that should be kept in mind before buying a digitizer:
- Number of Channels
- Sampling rate
- Bandwidth
- Data transfer rate
- On-board memory
- Interface: AXIe, cPCI, LXI, MTCA, PCI, PCIe, PXI, VME-bus, VXI and VPX for test system integration
Digitizers can be used in multiple applications such as RADAR, LIDAR, wireless communication, direct sampling, high-speed RF data recording, scientific instruments, semiconductor test, and test and measurement.
