Specifications and Interfaces

Absolute Maximum Ratings

Stresses beyond those listed in the Absolute Ratings Table may cause permanent damage to the device. These ratings are stress specifications only. Functional operation of the product at these conditions is not implied. Exposure to absolute maximum rating conditions for extended periods of time may affect reliability and is, therefore, not recommended.

Table 1: Absolute Ratings: Exposure or sustained operation at absolute ratings may permanently damage Calamine. Ensure fan inlets (located on both sides of the device) are not blocked during operation.

Specifications	Min	Max	Units	Notes
Operating Temperature	5	40	C	At fan inlet
Operating Humidity	5	100	%	Non-Condensing
Storage Temperature	0	40	C
Storage Humidity	20	95	%	Non-Condensing
Input RF Power		-10	dBm	Do not exceed.
IO and TRIG Voltage		2.6	V	Do not exceed: Direct to FPGA.
External Reference		3	Vpp	Do not exceed.
SMA Torque	0.6	0.7	Nm

Specifications

Calamine stands as an incredibly adaptable platform for radio and signal processing, catering to high-bandwidth communications across an extensive tuning spectrum. Its hardware and signal processing prowess can be tailored to suit a diverse array of applications, each with distinct performance benchmarks. Consequently, establishing uniform performance specifications across these varying configurations poses a considerable challenge.

To provide a general idea of what this product is capable of, Table 2 lists some conservative figures of its out-of-box performance. Configuration of the product towards a specific application may see some of these figures exceed at the expense of others. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Table 2: Observed Performance. These specifications reference observations taken during internal use and development. Calibration Measurements relative to 20˚C

	Specification	Min	Nom	Max	Units
Common Radio	RF Stage (Very High)	20,000		40,000	MHz
	RF Stage (High)	5,500		20,000	MHz
	RF Stage (Mid)	110		6,800	MHz
	Baseband Stage	0.1		140	MHz
	Dynamic Range	TBC		TBC	dB
	SFDR			TBC	dB
Receive Radio	RF Input Power		-10		dBm
	Noise Figure, Rx RF St	TBC		TBC	dB
	Power Gain Low	TBC		TBC	dB
	Power Gain High	TBC		TBC	dB
	Group Delay (Radio Chain)\(^{1}\) Low		13.7		ns
	Group Delay (Radio Chain)\(^{1}\) Mid		20		ns
	Group Delay (Radio Chain)\(^{1}\) High		TBC		ns
	Group Delay (Radio Chain)\(^{1}\) Very High		TBC		ns
ADC (Receive Converter)	Independent Channels		4		-
	ADC resolution		16		bits
	ADC Sample Rate		300	300	MSPS
	Rx Sampling Bandwidth		300		MHz
	Latency (input to serial)\(^{1}\)		50		ns
Receive DSP and FPGA Specs (default Firmware)	Decimation \(\left(\frac{f_{s}}{n}\right)\)	1		256	-
	Latency (FPGA DSP)\(^{1}\)	50	500	750	ns
Specifications	Latency (FPGA DSP)\(^{1}\)	96		160	ns
Digital	FPGA - Arria V ST SOC		5ASTMD3E3F31		-
	On Board Processor Core		ARM Cortex-A9		MP
	LPDDR2 RAM		4		Gb
	NAND Flash (x8)		4		Gb
Networking	10GBASE-R, Full Duplex\(^{2}\) (each)		10		Gbps
	Default IP, SFP+ Port A		10.10.10.2		-
	Default IP, SFP+ Port B		10.10.11.2		-
Int. Reference (10MHz)	Frequency Stability	-5	5		ppb
Ext. Reference (10MHz)	Input Voltage Swing	2.2	2.4	3	Vpp
IO, PPS, and TRIG	FPGA IO Voltage Range	0	2.5	2.6	V

\(^{1}\)For additional information on latency, please refer to the Application Note on Latency.

\(^{2}\)For additional information on bandwidth and sample rate, we have an Application Note that might be of interest.

External Interfaces

Calamine has a number of user accessible interfaces through which the device can connect to external sources and sinks. Management functions are carried out over a web page hosted by the Calamine receiver and accessible using the Management Ethernet port on the front face of the device. Data is sent over the 10Gbps SFP+ ports and receive and transmit antennas connect to the SMA connectors on the front of the device. Other peripherals ports provide access or the capability to improve functionality.

• 10/100 Management Port This connects to a Linux system running on the Hard Processing System located on the FPGA silicon, and provides a unified interface by which to control and configure the remaining devices.

• 10G BASE-R SFP+ There are two SFP+ ports on the front panel of the device that use 10GBASE-R encoding to directly communicate with an optical module and interface with a ten gigabit network. These ports directly interface with the FPGA fabric and support high bandwidth, low latency communication between the ADCs and DACs.

• 50\(\Omega\) SMA There are sixteen standard SMA headers. These are used to connect to external antennas, sinks, or sources, including:

  Rx DC-20 GHz(x4)	The four independent receive channels marked with DC-20 GHz may be connected to external sources or antennas for the rated frequency
  Rx 20-40 GHz(x4)	The four independent receive channels marked with 20-40 GHz may be connected to external sources or antennas for the rated frequency
  Ext.Osc	For the most demanding applications, an external oscillator may be used to drive the LMK04828 outputs. This implies a completely external synchronization solution
  Ext.PLL	A reference clock for local oscillator generation for the frequency synthesizers for receive and transmit PCBs
  Ext.Sys	The system reference clock for converter devices and the FPGA; only present when a sysref command is issued
  Ext.Dev	An external 322.265625MHz clock directly to the converter devices as well as the FPGA
  Ext.Refa	An external 10MHz reference may be applied to this port in lieu of the default, internal, 10MHz reference
  Ref. Out	Calamine may output its internal reference clock to other systems.
  PPS	This port can be used to synchronize internal time keeping
  TRIG	This port can be used as a trigger

• USB 2.0 A USB port connects to the Linux system running on the Hard Processor System.

• Micro-SD Slot The FPGA and Hard Processor System may be rebootedor configured using an external Micro-SD card.

• Debug Mini-DSUB The debug port provides JTAG access, and allows for the complete configuration of the unit.

• Trigger Mini-DSUB The trigger port provides access to independent, per-channel, triggers for each radio resource.

• IEC320 C14 Power A standard computer cable plugs into this connector to power the unit. The power supply accepts 120V or 240V.

Operating System

Although Calamine may be used with any operating system, we strongly recommend using a Linux operating system. This ensures you will be able to take advantage of a very large body of high performance that exists to support high performance computing applications, while also providing a more comprehensive development environment. It will also users to more easily use our existing example code, it’s best to set up the GnuRadio and UHD applications.

After connecting the Calamine Receiver to an external network or computer using its dedicated Ethernet management port, you may configure the device using the provided web interface. It is also possible to SSH into the small Linux distribution running on the on-board processor.

Network Interface Card Requirements

Calamine uses a 10-gigabit Ethernet connection to quickly send and receive data. The Calamine uses a 10GBASE-SR PHY that interfaces with each SFP+ port using a single, 10.3125Gbps serial lane and a scrambled 64B/66B coding scheme. It is very important to ensure that network devices or interfaces intended to be used to connect to Calamine support 10GBASE-SR.

The recommended NICs for Calamine are:

Manufacturer	MPN	Host Interface
Solarflare	SFN8522-ONLOAD	PCIe 3.1 x8
Xilinx	X2522-25G-PLUS	PCIe 3.1 x8

Solarflare Flareon Ultra SFN8522-Onload Dual-Port 10GbE SFP+ PCIe 3.1 Server I/O Adapter is available here. Xilinx X2522-25G-PLUS 10/25GbE - SFP28/SFP+ - 2x Port - Low Profile Adapter Card is available here.

If you have any questions or concerns about NIC card requirements, please do not hesitate to contact us for further information.

Optical Fibre Requirements

Calamine requires active optical cabling: using passive, direct connect, SFP+ cables is not supported. Our product can ship with high quality, direct attach, SFP+ active optical cabling (AOC) with the appropriate kit option. Alternatively, you may also choose to use a compatible 10GBASE-R SFP+ optical transceiver module, along with fibre cable.

The recommended optical fibre cables for Calamine are:

Manufacturer	MPN
Avago	AFBR-2CAR3Z

Or, use a combination of optical cable and transceiver with the following:

Cable Specifications

Specification	Recommendation
Cable	LC Duplex
Connector Type	LC UPC
Multimode Fiber Quality	OM4 or better
Number of Fibers	12
Polarity	Type B (patch cable)
Colour	any
Length	As short as possible (suggested <5m, up to 100m)
Wavelength	850nm

Transceiver Specifications

Description	Specification	Notes
Electronmechanical	SFP+
Protocol	10GBASE-SR4	We only support -SR4 type transceiver modules connected to Calamine
Connector	LC Duplex	Same as cables
Wavelength	850nm	Should match cabling
Transceiver DDM or DOM Support	Yes

If you have any questions or concerns about transceiver or optical fibre requirements, please do not hesitate to contact us.

RF Chain

Simulated RF chain performance (based on component specifications) yield the simulated performance indicated in Table 3. As both the receive and transmission chains use variable stages, the figures were calculated using midpoint references for attenuation and gain stages. With proper tuning and calibration, you should expect better values. More information on the specific RF chain used may be found in the System Architecture Chapter.

Table 3: These specifications are intended to serve as a broad guide, with variable gain and attenuation stages set at midpoints. As variable stages are adjusted, performance generally improves.

Table 3a:

Specification	Value	Units
Input Power	-55	dBm
Frequency	2000	MHz
Analysis B/W	150	MHz

Table 3b:

Analysis	Specification	Value(lna)	Value(lna+pa)	Units
Rx chain	NF	4.8	3.1	dB
	SFDR	55	47	dB
	IMD	-113	-81	dB
	IIP3	-1.3	-17	dBm
	SNR	32	33	dB
	Rx Sensitivity	-86	-87	dBm
	Input P1dB	-28	-44	dBm