Digitizers, AXIe see innovation and application

In an email message, Lauri Viitas, VP of product and business development at the company, said the Guzik ADP7000 Series is the first third-party product to deploy Keysight Technologies’ proprietary 10-bit ADC technology, currently only available within the Keysight Infiniium S-Series oscilloscopes. “The ADP7000 products can directly sample RF signals at DC up to 10 GHz on multiple channels simultaneously,” he said. “All signal processing is performed in the digital domain with no analog conversions.”

Keysight’s two-channel 32-GS/s 10-bit ADC is coupled to 128 GB of memory and 6 TFLOPS of onboard FPGA processing. Using the industry-standard AXIe modular form factor, multiple digitizers can be deployed within a single Keysight AXIe chassis for multichannel phase-coherent measurements.

“Keysight is focused on delivering world-class measurement solutions to solve the most challenging problems faced by our customers,” said Jay Alexander, Keysight chief technology officer, in a press release. “Collaborating with innovative partners, like Guzik, we are able to rapidly expand our portfolio of solutions in areas with critical measurement needs, such as 5G, and other advanced communication applications.”

Larry Desjardin, president of Modular Methods and an industry consultant, added that he considered the ADP7000 Series’ performance as “simply breathtaking.” The instrument has applicability to 5G test, as described in our 5G Special Report, but Desjardin said he expected it to find use in radar and EW applications as well. “It delivers the critical combination of speed, processing, and channel scalability needed in those applications,” he said.

The instrument incorporates Intel Arria 10 FPGAs coupled with multiple real-time FPGA firmware options including digital downconversion (DDC), frequency and phase equalization, baseband digital filtering and decimation, and periodic averaging functions for high dynamic range and low noise. Patented 2-channel real-time 32-GS/s DDC technology with equalization allows the instrument to perform digital downconversion in real time. Combined with IF magnitude triggering, the combination allows users to store and analyze variable sub-bands of interest up to 2.5 GHz wide, with the IF magnitude triggering defining the start and stop points of the variable-length segmented acquisition.

System performance includes the ability to store up to 128 GB of acquisition data per module and to offload the data to the AXIe chassis at up to 6.4 GB/s using a PCI Express x8-wide Gen3 link. Each ADP7000 comes with four optical data interfaces that deliver a combined throughput of 80 GB/s, allowing continuous real-time data streaming to storage. Alternatively, data may be streamed optically to additional signal processors, such as the Guzik DP7000 digital processor.

The Guzik Signal Analyzer Software Toolkit available for the ADP7000 includes an IVI-compliant driver, a signal-display application, and a software development kit for integrating the ADP7000 into the customer’s existing software environment. The ADP7000 Series also integrates with several software packages from Keysight Technologies including the N8901A Infiniium-hosted oscilloscope interface software for digitizers, the 89600 VSA software, and the 81199A Wideband Waveform Analyzer Studio.

Prices start at $100,000, with deliveries in early 2018. Orders will be taken through the Keysight Technologies Application Engineering Organization.

Optical Data Interface

Guzik was one of several companies voicing support for the AXIe Consortium’s Oct. 2 announcement of a new specification, Optical Data Interface (ODI), suitable for high-speed instrumentation systems addressing challenging 5G communications, mil/aero, and advanced communications research applications. Joining Guzik and the consortium in endorsing the standard were Conduant, Intel, Keysight, Samtec, and Xilinx—all stating their plans to offer components or instrumentation products compliant with the new standard. Though managed by the AXIe Consortium, the new standard is not specific to AXIe and works equally well with any instrument format—traditional bench, AXIe, LXI, or PXI.

Chris Miller, chairman of the AXIe Consortium and strategic planning manager at Keysight Technologies, said in a press release, “The ODI specification delivers data-communication speeds simply not possible using electrical interconnects. Since it uses a small optical connector that can be placed on any instrument, it is not specific to the AXIe modular standard. For the benefit of the industry and users alike, we have decided to open it up for use by any vendor building products, regardless of form factor, and not restrict it to AXIe.”¹

Desjardin added, “When you look at 5G or phased-array mil/aero applications, the aggregate bandwidth needed to transfer I/Q data grows pretty rapidly. Electrical solutions can’t even extend across a backplane, much less a racked system. But with optics, you can connect instruments up to 100 meters away if needed. The interoperability, bandwidth, and distance issues simply disappear.”

The ODI standard leverages three layers of technology.² The physical-layer optical technology consists of 12 lanes of 14.1 Gb/s each, enabling 20 GB/s per optical port. Multimode fiber cables connect ports together, using a standard MPO (Multi-fiber Push On) connector. Ports may be aggregated, with four ports delivering 80 GB/s. The protocol layer is defined by the Interlaken standard, a device-interconnect standard common in data centers, conceived by Cortina Systems and Cisco Systems. Interlaken is supported by the major FPGA suppliers and delivers arbitrary packets over any number of lanes.

The top layer specifies packets defined by the VITA 49 family of standards, also known as VRT, or VITA Radio Transport. VRT packets are sent between devices using standardized data formats and context packets. VITA is the trade association for standard computing architecture serving critical and intelligent embedded computing systems industries.

Desjardin elaborated on the top layer, emphasizing that “…ODI is not simply a physical-link standard. We’ve adopted the VITA 49 standards, which define data formats for software-defined radios. This extends the applications from not just test and measurement, but to embedded designs as well.”

Jerry Gipper, VITA executive director, elaborated further. “The VITA Radio Transport standards define packet structure and formatting for a wide set of software-defined-radio and mil/aero applications,” he said. “By having it adopted by the test and measurement industry, VRT has expanded its reach and set up numerous opportunities for synergy.” He added, “There is no apparent reason that ODI couldn’t be adopted by the embedded industry itself, and we are investigating that opportunity.”

Viitas at Guzik commented, “Our recently announced ADP7000 digitizer and DP7000 processor products are essentially ODI products already. We co-designed these breakthrough products while the standard was being created. ODI allows us to stream two 10-bit channels at 32 GS/s each continuously to either storage or to our 6-TFLOPS DP7000 processor board. We intend to adhere to the standard as it is finalized, delivering the first ODI products to the marketplace.”

Alexander added, “Keysight is committed to accelerating innovation to connect and secure the world, and the Optical Data Interface standard is one way to make that happen. It’s a cross-domain standard that will enable companies in multiple industries, from aerospace and defense to 5G communications, to address their needs for real-time streaming and other high-performance data transport solutions.” And Ken Owens, CEO of Conduant, commented, “Conduant has been a leader in high-speed storage solutions for over 20 years. We will be delivering storage solutions, supporting both recording and playback, using the ODI standard.”

Component vendors also endorsed the standard. Marc Verdiell, chief technology officer of Samtec Optical Group, said, “The Samtec FireFly Micro Flyover System optical engine coupled with ODI-compliant optical cable assembles offers the test and measurement industry a ready-made ODI physical-layer solution. Samtec will also offer standard 24-fiber ODI cable in standard lengths easing implementation of the ODI standard.”

Chuck Tato, director of Wireline Communications and Test & Measurement, Intel Programmable Solutions Group, stated, “Intel’s FPGA business has been an active supporter of the Interlaken protocol for many years, offering IP cores used in many customer designs across generations of FPGA product families. Interlaken IP cores running at the data rate requirement of ODI are already available with Intel Arria 10, our latest midrange product. We will ensure conformance to the ODI specifications and extend the offerings to our newest generation Intel Stratix 10 FPGA products.”

And finally, Hanneke Krekels, senior director, Test, Measurement & Emulation Markets at Xilinx, said, “Xilinx offers Interlaken IP with our UltraScale and UltraScale+ FPGA platforms to support this new standard and is excited to see it enabling challenging instrumentation applications requiring robust implementation.”

Pursuing magnetic-field record

In related news, Spectrum Instrumentation reported that the International MegaGauss Science Laboratory, part of the Institute for Solid State Physics (ISSP) at the University of Tokyo, is attempting to set a new world record for the highest-ever indoor magnetic field. In pursuit of the record, the ISSP needed to improve the precision of capacitor-bank firing processes with subnanosecond measurements and has installed a DN6.221-12 digitizerNETBOX system, which offers 12 fully synchronous channels, each sampling at 1.25 GS/s.

To optimize the magnetic fields generated by the laboratory’s MegaGauss machine, the trigger events that fire banks of large capacitors must occur within 10 ns of each other. To achieve this level of precision, the lab employs the digitizer to examine the trigger signals for each capacitor to determine their key characteristics and timing relationships to ensure optimal firing. The DN6.221-12 met the lab’s requirements for a fully synchronous, 10-channel digitizer system that delivers a single-shot sampling rate faster than 1 GS/s. The high sampling rate allows the shape and frequency content of individual trigger pulses to be revealed, while fully synchronous sampling supports consistent interchannel timing measurements with subnanosecond precision.

Adding a further complication, the MegaGauss machine’s magnetic fields are potentially unsafe and can interfere with the instrumentation. Consequently, the digitizer, located in the laboratory, must be shielded, while the operator adjusts and monitors the experiments from the safety of a control room via the DN6.221-12’s LXI interface over the laboratory’s network.

The DN6.221-12 is a member of the DN6.22x digitizerNETBOX Series LXI digitizers (Figure 2), introduced earlier this year. The DN6.221 models offer versions with 12, 16, 20, and 24 channels, with each channel capable of sampling at rates up to 1.25 GS/s. The DN6.225 models allow up to 12 channels to sample at 2.5 GS/s or 6 channels to sample at 5 GS/s.

The units also come with SBench 6-Pro software, which allows the user to quickly set up the system and start making measurements. SBench 6-Pro features a graphical user interface that allows multichannel waveform display, data analysis, and documentation. Acquired and analyzed signals can be stored and exported to other devices or other software programs (such as MATLAB) in formats such as ASCII, binary, and wave.

As for the ISSP, Spectrum Instrumentation reported in October that the laboratory’s pulse magnets can currently generate up to 87 Tesla (T) by nondestructive methods and from 100 T up to 760 T (currently the world record for the strongest field generated indoors) by a destructive process. Spectrum said that the laboratory is now able to further optimize the performance of the MegaGauss machine with the expectation that it will be able to generate the world’s strongest ever in-door magnetic fields by year-end.

References

1. “AXIe Consortium, multiple vendors support optical communication standard,” EE-Evaluation Engineering Online, Oct. 2, 2017.
2. “What is ODI?” AXIe Consortium, Oct. 2017.
3. “Spectrum says digitizer is key to record-breaking indoor magnetic fields at University of Tokyo,” EE-Evaluation Engineering Online, Oct. 20, 2017.

For more information:

• Guzik Technical Enterprises
• Intel
• Keysight Technologies
• Samtec
• Spectrum Instrumentation
• Xilinx