SDR prototyping kit allows for multi-channel synchronisation

5th August 2014

Analog Devices

Staff Reporter

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Datasheet

A SDR rapid prototyping kit, billed as the industry’s first, has been released by Analog Devices. Incorporating dual 2 x 2 AD9361 RF transceivers, the AD-FMCOMMS5-EBZ kit aims to simplify and rapidly prototype 4 x 4 MIMO wireless transceiver applications on the Xilinx Zynq-7000 all programmable SoC development platforms.

Providing a hardware/software ecosystem solution, the kit addresses he challenges of SDR transceiver synchronization experienced by RF and analog designers when implementing systems using MIMO architectures. Supported by the simulation engine SimRF by MathWorks, the kit includes a FMC which features two of the company's AD9361 2 x 2 RF transceivers. In addition to the FMC, the kit also provides designers with support circuitry, reference designs, HDL code, device drivers for Zynq-7000 SoCs and online support at ADI’s EngineerZone. These features allow for rapid prototyping which reduces development time and risk.

The fifth kit of its kind to be introduced by ADI, the AD-FMCOMMS5-EBZ aims to help customers address the global SDR market that is expected to double to $28 billion by 2020. SDR MIMO applications range from defense electronics and RF instrumentation to communications infrastructure and include active antennas, transmit beamforming, receive angle of arrival systems and open-source SDR development projects.