Analog Devices, Inc. announced the immediate availability of the dual-channel, 1.25 V, 14-bit, 1 GSPS AD9680 A/D converter featuring the best noise and dynamic range performance in its class, enabling the trend for direct RF sampling in communications, instrumentation and military/aerospace applications. Its noise density of -154 dBFs/Hz is the lowest in the industry. The breakthrough performance, bandwidth, and integrated functionality of ADI’s wideband RF data acquisition technology allows for better signal extraction in congested RF environments over a wider bandwidth than ever before. The AD9680 is interoperable with FPGAs from major manufacturers and supported with known good configurations. The AD9680, combined with the recently announced 12-bit, 2 GSPS AD9625 A/D converter, demonstrate ADI’s innovation in providing leading-edge offerings driving the trend toward direct RF sampling.

The AD9680 A/D converter allows more degrees of freedom for system designers trading off signal bandwidth, noise and linearity because it can digitize a DC to 2 GHz input signal with an accompanying dynamic range performance that was previously unavailable on the open market. Implementing a direct RF sampling architecture eliminates analog down-conversion stages and their associated noise and cost, and allows more front-end configuration and tuning to be accomplished entirely in the digital domain. With the AD9680 designers can increase signal sensitivity and bandwidth data rate, while enabling the use of an advanced reconfigurable data acquisition or radio platform. The A/D converter is available with an evaluation board design environment and reference designs for rapid system prototyping and board-level design and layout.