Wireless communications networks are rapidly evolving. Consumers are expressing increasing demands for enhanced data services and greater use of bandwidth. New generation wireless communications systems demand higher data throughput, lower power consumption, and higher reliability. These requirements are often in conflict with each other.

Meeting these demands requires a high sample rate, signal bandwidth, and power efficient D/A Converter (DAC) solution. New generation high speed DAC products feature GSPS sample and input data rate, and offer multi-carrier GSM compliant performance for the multi-band, multi-standard radio base station while lowering the total power consumption and the density of heat dissipation in the system.

System Challenges in High Bandwidth

It is not uncommon that the transmit bandwidth of a modern mobile base station exceeds 300 MHz. Requirements for supporting wider data bandwidth and digital pre-distortion techniques are raising the bar for usable signal bandwidth and dynamic performance of high speed DAC products. Challenges in achieving higher system bandwidth are three-fold.

First, higher signal bandwidth requires a faster DAC sample rate. The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem mandates that the converter sample rate be at least twice as fast as the signal to be synthesized. Hence, without taking account of other design constraints, the DAC sample rate needs to increase at a 2X rate of the signal bandwidth. Analog reconstruction filtering is another major factor in the system design that pushes for a faster DAC sample rate.

A brick-wall analog filter is neither feasible nor efficient to build in a wireless transmitter. In practice, the system requires a certain oversampling ratio of the DAC sample rate over the synthesized signal bandwidth so that a filter transition band can be built between the desired signal and the high frequency DAC sampling images that need to be rejected. For example, if a signal to be synthesized spreads +/-50MHz around the center frequency of 150 MHz, the higher end of the DAC output signal is 200MHz, comparing to 450MHz when the signal is centered at 300 MHz with +/-150 MHz bandwidth. It can be seen that the second case requires a DAC with much higher sample rate.

Second, higher signal bandwidth requires a faster and more reliable converter data interface. The required signal bandwidth increases proportionately with the transmitting data throughput. To achieve 300MHz system bandwidth using IQ modulation, the combined input data rate of a dual DAC (I and Q) is 750 MSPS, considering a filter roll-off factor of 0.2. This translates to an input data period of 1.3 3ns, which puts a large pressure on the system designers to minimize inter-bit timing misalignment on the data bus in order to meet the setup and hold timing requirements. With traditional parallel data interface schemes, such as LVDS and CMOS, this is very challenging. The new JESD204B high speed serial interface provides a reliable and scalable solution for migrating to higher data rates.

Third, integrated circuit (IC) devices are not ideal components. A DAC is no exception. A higher output bandwidth demands better dynamic performance from a DAC device for two reasons. The dynamic range generally decreases with the increase of the DAC output frequency. In addtion, more spurious content tends to fall in band when the bandwidth is larger. However, the system spurious requirements do not scale or relax with the signal bandwidth. A mobile base station still needs to meet a regulated emission mask requirement regardless of the supported signal bandwidth. A DAC with superior dynamic performance eases frequency planning and filtering in the system.

Figure 1 and 2 show measured spectrum performance of an AD9144 DAC synthesizing an 80 MHz signal (16C-WCDMA) at a DAC sample rate of 2,800 MSPS.

Figure 1 measured wideband performance (up to Nyquist frequency) of an AD9144 DAC synthesizing a 16C-WCDMA signal, fDAC = 2,800 MSPS

Figure 2 measured wideband performance at an ADRF6720  QMOD output at 3 GHz RF frequency with the same AD9144 DAC output (as in Figure 1) driving the QMOD

System Challenges in Low Power and High Reliability

System designers are facing other challenges in increasing the transmit bandwidth and data capacity. These challenges include power consumption, heat dissipation and system reliability. These dimensions are often orthogonal to, and sometimes in conflict with, the goal of higher system bandwidth. Therefore, system designers demand a new DAC product that can provide a higher level of feature integration, lower power consumption, lower operating heat density, and wider bandwidth in the same package.

High speed DAC products have been evolving rapidly in the recent years and recently more digital and analog features have been integrated in the DAC product. Two clear examples are the DAC on-chip clock multiplier PLL and communication specific signal processing features. These features used to be implemented somewhere else in the system, such as a high speed clock synthesizer and a baseband ASIC/FPGA. A DAC that featuring these functions not only reduces the overall BOM cost but also provides a path for an easier and more reliable design.

With a clock multiplier in the DAC, the system only needs to provide a low frequency reference clock to the device. The clock multiplier locks to the external reference clock and generates a high speed sample clock internally for the DAC. That means less worry about high speed clock coupling and trace impedance matching on the PCB. New digital features such as Power Detection and Protection provide an extra layer of protection to the RF chain from being damaged by over-range signals or abnormal system behaviors. Despite this higher level of feature integration, the power consumption of DAC devices remains largely constant or even decreases compared to the last generation products. The advancement of high speed DAC technology on finer silicon process nodes plays an important role in addressing the system challenges.

Besides consuming less power and having a smaller carbon emission footprint, another important benefit from lower component power consumption is lower heat density. A wireless communications system is typically confined within a watertight metal chassis. The size and weight limits normally do not allow active cooling. The heat generated by the IC components is dissipated through the chassis. The cavity and PCB temperature inside of the chassis can be so high that it starts to have an impact on the system’s long term reliability. The accumulated heat can potentially affect the PCB mechanical characteristics, the solder joints between the components and board and accelerate aging, i.e., long term shifts of the electrical specifications of IC components. The heat distribution/dissipation in a system is not even. The contributions are mainly from several sources that are signal processing rich.

The high speed DAC is one of them. Therefore, a DAC that is both feature rich and low power is very attractive to system designers.

Figure 3 and 4 show measured performance of an AD9144 synthesizing a 4C-WCDMA signal at a DAC sample rate of 1966 MSPS with on-chip DAC clock multiplier on and off respectively.

Figure 3 measured 4C-WCDMA ACLR performance of an AD9144 at 150 MHz output frequency with on-chip clock multiplier enabled, fREF = 245.76 MHz, fDAC = 1,966 MSPS

Figure 4 measured 4C-WCDMA ACLR performance of an AD9144 at 150 MHz output frequency with on-chip clock multiplier disabled, fDAC = 1,966 MSPS

System Challenges in Common Platform Design

While demanding wider coverage and ever more bandwidth, fast expansion of consumer demand for data services is also calling for multi-standard radio (MSR) base stations. Different radio technologies and increasing frequency allocations make it more complex to control networks and reduce costs. Meeting these demands requires an efficient and comparatively inexpensive solution to the problem of building MSR base stations, a common platform design. DAC technological advances support this evolution of the base station design. Multi-carrier GSM (MC-GSM) is generally considered the air standard that has the most stringent dynamic range requirements. The MC-GSM test is often used to judge whether a DAC product supports a common platform design.

Figure 5 and 6 show measured performance of an AD9144 synthesizing a 6C-GSM signal at a DAC sample rate of 1,966 MSPS.

Figure 5 measured 6C-GSM IMD performance of an AD9144 at 50 MHz DAC output frequency, fDAC = 1,966 MSPS

Figure 6 measured 6C-GSM wideband performance of an AD9144 at 50 MHz DAC output frequency, fDAC = 1,966 MSPS

Summary

Modern wireless communications networks are evolving to more data services and greater use of bandwidth. In order to support this trend, new generation wireless communications systems need to have higher data throughput, lower power consumption and higher reliability. The advancement of high speed DAC technology, such as the AD9144 from Analog Devices, has enabled the next generation multi-standard radio design and has helped system designers achieve breakthrough innovations on multiple critical technological dimensions.

About the Authors

Yi Zhang is an Applications Engineer for the High Speed Converter Group at Analog Devices. He has worked for the company since 2007. Yi has over eight years of experience in high speed converter products and high speed mixed-signal applications. He is the author of the data sheets, application notes and technical articles of several generations of high speed digital-to-analog converter (DAC) products. Yi holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Michele Viani, Applications Engineer, has worked in the High Speed Converter Group at Analog Devices for 5 years.  Michele has worked as both a Product Engineer and Applications Engineer, responsible for evaluating high speed digital-to-analog converter products and providing technical support to customers in solving implementation issues. Michele holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

For more information visit www.analog.com.