The iDC-7901 is a member of the IDC-7900 family of next-generation full band RF down-converter products offered by Intelligent RF Solutions. Building on the iDC-6800 family of 2 to 18GHz down-converters, the iDC-7900 series offers compact size (3U VPX), improved spurious performance, high dynamic range and “digitizer-ready” IF outputs placed in the second Nyquist ready for integration with a suitable digitizer card. Combined with a suitable digitizer, the iDC-7901 converter facilitates monitoring, detection and processing of the full 2 to 18GHz spectrum simultaneously. Low SWaP allows iDC-7901 down-converter to support a broad range of applications including wideband stare, High probability of intercept (HPOI), wideband digitization and RFSoC processing solutions on even the smallest platforms.

The iDC-7901 separates the full 2 to 18GHz spectrum into eight overlapping bands, and provides simultaneous frequency-conversion to eight, 2.5GHz-wide IF signals each centered at 4.0GHz. Overlap of 500MHz provides the ability to process signals of 500MHz BW centered anywhere in the 2 to 18GHz band. Dual-stage frequency conversion is employed on the lowest two bands to achieve excellent spurious performance. Integrated low phase noise PLL synthesizers generate all necessary LO signals which are locked to an external reference of 10 or 100MHz which can be provided as a sinewave signal or differential clock signal. Feeding multiple down-converters with a common reference provides coherency between multiple channels of iDC-7900 units.

IF Signals are centered at 4.0 GHz and are suitably filtered to allow second-Nyquist sampling at a rate of 5.333GSPS. Integrated anti-alias filters on each IF output provide 60dB alias-free dynamic range over a minimum 2.2GHz BW, allowing direct interface to a multi-channel digitizer. High single tone spur-free dynamic range is achieved by use of state-of-the-art MMIC mixers permitting better than 60dB of SFDR with input signals of 0dBm.

All RF connections (5 RF Input, 9 IF Output and 1 Frequency Reference) are available via the black-plane VITA-67.3 RF nano connector. A compact 3U VPX, SOSA-aligned package supports deployment of extended EW/SIGINT capabilities on low SWaP platforms.