Students Need Help

[leshanv02]

Hello,

I'm working on a software defined radio that can perform beamforming to observe a signal of interest. We are in the planning stages of our project currently, and are trying to find a relatively cheap FPGA board with an integrated ADC that can do 75-100 MHz or 150 - 200 MSPS with 12-16  bits. If that's not possible we were wondering if it was possible to solder on an IC ADC to a Nexyus A7 with similar specs to what was mentioned. Our budget is around $500-600 for the FPGA. 

[artvvb]

Hi @leshanv02

These sample rates are fast enough that even a custom PCB wired to a Nexys A7's Pmod ports might not be able to keep up, which implies use of a board with FMC or SYZYGY connectors. The two boards that Digilent sells that could be appropriate for this project are the Eclypse Z7 and USB104 A7, using a Zmod expansion module (Digitizer, SDR, or Scope) to provide the ADC. I'm not the most familiar with SDR in general, but Pavel Demin's GNU Radio demos for both boards could be good starting points. Both boards can do up to 125 MS/s with 14-bit data with a Zmod Digitizer. Significant customization of those demo projects, or even creating a new Vivado project from scratch, will be quite complicated though.

• Eclypse Z7 Notes (pavel-demin.github.io) - for both of these links, refer to the doc for specific hardware requirements.
• USB104 A7 Notes (pavel-demin.github.io)

Hardware mentioned:

• Eclypse Z7: https://digilent.com/shop/eclypse-z7/
• USB104 A7: Artix-7 FPGA Development Board with SYZYGY-compatible Expansion - Digilent
• Zmod Digitizer 1430-125 (digilent.com)
• Zmod SDR: SYZYGY-compatible Analog-to-Digital Converter Module for Software-Defined Radio - Digilent
• Zmod Scope 1410: 2-channel 14-bit Oscilloscope Module - Digilent (note that there are other variants of the Scope available, with varying levels of support)

I don't have any other suggestions to hand, but other folks around the forum might be able to suggest suitable boards from other vendors.

Hope this helps,

Arthur