Richardson RFPD Wideband RF Transceiver Eval Board AD-FMCOMMS3-EBZ

The AD-FMCOMMS3-EBZ is a high-speed analog module designed to showcase the AD9361, a high performance, highly integrated RF transceiver intended for use in RF applications, such as 3G and 4G base station and test equipment applications, and software defined radios. Its programmability and wideband capability make it ideal for a broad range of transceiver applications. The device combines an RF front end with a flexible mixed-signal baseband section and integrated frequency synthesizers, simplifying design-in by providing a configurable digital interface to a processor or FPGA. The AD9361 chip operates in the 70 MHz to 6 GHz range, covering most licensed and unlicensed bands. The chip supports channel bandwidths from less than 200 kHz to 56 MHz by changing sample rate, digital filters, and decimation, which are all programmable within the AD9361 itself. The AD-FMCOMMS3-EBZ provides software developers and system architect who want a single platform to operate over a wider tuning range than the AD-FMCOMMS2-EBZ. RF performance expectations of this board must be tempered with the very wide band front end. It does meet the datasheet specifications at 2.4 GHz, but does not over the entire RF tuning range that the board supports. Typical performance data for the entire range (70 MHz – 6 GHz) which is supported by the platform is published within the board documentation. This board is primarily intended for system investigation and bringing up various waveforms from a software team before custom hardware is complete. The objective being for designers to see waveforms, but not being concerned about the last 1dB or 1% EVM of performance. For performance-oriented platforms – please refer to the AD-FMCOMMS2-EBZ.