Ku Band Upconverter with Integrated Fractional-N PLL and VCO

The ADMV4630 is a Ku band upconverter optimized for various satellite communication (SATCOM) user terminals that operate in the 14.0 GHz to 14.5 GHz frequency range.

The ADMV4630 local oscillator (LO) signal is generated internally via the on-chip Integer N (INT) synthesizer. The internal synthesizer enables LO frequency coverage from 8.7 GHz to 10.7 GHz. The input intermediate frequency (IF) signals from 3 GHz to 5 GHz are upconverted to an RF of 14.0 GHz to 14.5 GHz. The chip includes filtering to attenuate both the LO feedthrough and unwanted lower sideband. The chip also includes a digital step attenuator at the IF input to provide up to 31 dB of gain control range with 1 dB steps to adjust for preceding cable losses. The transmitter output is automatically muted if the synthesizer becomes unlocked.

The digital serial peripheral interface (SPI) allows fast frequency and gain programming. In addition to the digital SPI control, an analog control pin (TXMUTE) quickly powers down all circuits and places the receiver in standby mode for power saving. Another analog general-purpose input/output (AGPIO) pin can be used either as an input to be read by the on-chip analog-to-digital converter (ADC), or as an analog output for proportional to absolute temperature (PTAT) voltages. There are also three digital GPIO pins that output logic levels to control external devices using the SPI.

The ADMV4630 upconverter comes in a compact, thermally enhanced, 6 mm × 6 mm, 40-lead lead frame chip scale package (LFCSP). The ADMV4630 operates over the −40°C to +85°C case temperature range.

Applications

* SATCOM user terminals

* IF to Ku band upconverter with integrated PLL

* RF output frequency range: 14.0 GHz to 14.5 GHz

* Internal LO frequency range: 8.7 GHz to 10.7 GHz

* Noise floor density: <−140 dBm/Hz

* Matched 50 Ω single-ended RF output and IF input

* On-chip power detector