Specifications and Interfaces

Cyan is a high channel count, ultra wide band, high gain, direct conversion quadrature transceiver and signal processing platform. Providing simultaneous support for up 16, fully independent, transmit or receive radio channels, this flexible platform uses four 40GBASE-R qSFP ports to quickly receive and transmit radio data. With a standard instantaneous bandwidth of 1GHz (upgradable to 3GHz using our high bandwidth option), 16 bit converter resolution, and a tunable RF range between 100kHz to 20GHz, Cyan aims to provide end users with the best possible performance available from a commercial vendor. Cyan is compatible with various signal processing tool kits, including GNU Radio and includes source code for many of its drivers and peripherals.

Note

Cyan is capable of Digital Down/Up Conversion, so superhet architectures can be implemented using Digital Down/Up Conversion on the FPGA.

Absolute Maximum Ratings

Stresses beyond those listed in the Absolute Ratings Table 1 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.

Warning

Laboratory Use Only EXCEEDING ABSOLUTE RATINGS MAY DAMAGE DEVICE AND MAY CAUSE DANGEROUS FIRE OR ELECTRICAL HAZARDS Exceeding these ratings may substantially damage device, and the resulting hazards may cause serious personal injury or death.

Table 1: Absolute Ratings: Exposure or sustained operation at absolute ratings may permanently damage Cyan. 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 1.8 V Do not exceed: Direct to FPGA.
External Reference 3 Vpp Do not exceed.
SMA Torque 0.6 0.7 Nm

Specifications

Cyan is a very flexible radio and signal processing platform that supports high bandwidth communications over a wide tuning range. Specific performance figures are provided as an appendix to this manual; for specific measurements, please contact Per Vices.

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: Calibration Measurements relative to 20˚C

Specification Min Nom Max Units
Common Radio RF Stage (LMX2595) 0.5 20 GHz
Baseband Stage 0.1 500 MHz
Dynamic Range 25 70 dB
SFDR 65 dB
Receive Radio RF Input Power -40 dBm
Noise Figure, Rx RF St 3.1 7 dB
Power Gain Low 15 45 dB
Power Gain High -10 65 dB
Group Delay (Radio Chain)\(^{1}\) Low TBD ns
Group Delay (Radio Chain)\(^{1}\) High TBD ns
Radio Channels Independent Rx/Tx Channels\(^{2}\) 16 -
(Receive Converter) ADC resolution\(^{3}\) 12 16 bits
ADC Sample Rate\(^{3}\) 1 325 GSPS
Rx Sampling Bandwidth 1 GHz
Latency (input to serial)\(^{1}\) TBD ns
Receive DSP and FPGA Specs (default Firmware) Decimation \(\left(\frac{f_{s}}{n}\right)\) 1 65534 -
Latency (FPGA DSP)\(^{1}\) TBD ns
Transmit Radio Transmit Power Low -10 18 dBm
Transmit Power High dBm
Group Delay (radio chain)\(^{1}\) Low TBD ns
Group Delay (radio chain)\(^{1}\) High TBD ns
DAC (Transmit Converter) Tx Output Bandwidth\(^3\) 1 GHz
DAC resolution 16 bits
DAC Output Bandwidth 6 GSPS
Latency (serial to output)\(^{1}\) TBD ns
Transmit DSP and FPGA Interpolation (\(n\cdot f_{s}\)) 1 65534 -
Specifications Latency (FPGA DSP)\(^{1}\) TBD ns
Digital FPGA - Stratix 10 SOC 1SX280HU3F50 -
On Board Processor Core ARM Cortex-A53 -
HPS RAM (DDR4) 16 Gb
FPGA RAM (DDR4, x2) 64 Gb
NAND Flash (x8) 4 Gb
Networking 40GBASE-R, Data\(^{2}\) x4(each) 40 Gbps
100BASE-T, Management x2 (each) 1 Gbps
Int. Reference (10MHz) Frequency Stability -5 5 ppb
Ext. Reference (10MHz) Input Voltage Swing 2.5 3 Vpp
IO, PPS, and TRIG FPGA IO Voltage Range 0 1.6 V

\(^{1}\)For additional information on latency, please contact us.

\(^{2}\)Default product contains 8 Rx and 8 Tx channels, but may be customized to support an arbitrary number of Rx or Tx channels.

\(^{3}\)Default product contains 1GSPS convertor with 16bit resolution. High bandwidth variant supports 3GSPS converter with 12 bit resolution.

External Interfaces

Cyan 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 Cyan transceiver and accessible using the Management Ethernet port on the front face of the device. Data is sent over the 40Gbps qSFP 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.

Operating System

Although Cyan 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 allow users to more easily use our existing example code, and also provides for a higher performance computing environment. It is also possible to SSH into the small Linux distribution running on the on-board processor.

Network Interface Card (NIC) Requirements

Cyan uses a 40-gigabit Ethernet connection to quickly send and receive data. The following network cards have been tested for compatibility with Cyan. The recommended NICs for Cyan are:

Manufacturer MPN Line Rate
Mellanox MCX516A-CDAT Regular
Napatech NT200A02-2×100/40 High-throughput

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

If you’re using a module for the recommended NICs, you’ll want an interface that supports:

Description Cyan 40G Cyan 100G Notes
Electromechanical qSFP+ qSFP+
Protocol 40GBASE-SR4 100GBASE-SR4 We only support -SR4 type transceiver modules connected to Cyan)
Connector MTP/MPO MTP/MPO Same as cables.
Transceiver DDM or DOM Support Yes Yes Yes

Optical Fiber Requirements

Cyan requires active optical cabling: Cyan can ship with high quality, qSFP cabling (AOC) that uses OM-1 type optical fiber (kit option). We suggest using Optical Multimode (OM) grade fiber (OM4 or better). In a production environment, or when integrating the product into existing infrastructure, you may use legacy FDDI grade fiber for short runs, though we advise testing worst-case performance across the longest run prior to wide scale deployment.

For the optical cabling connected to Cyan, to be used with the suggested qSFP+ transceiver and NICs, and directly connected to another transceiver, we recommend the following:

Specification Recommendation
Cable Type B (Method B) Female to Female cable
Connector Type MTP/MPO (recommended) or (MPO)
Multimode Fiber Quality OM4 or better (ie; OM5)
Number of Fibers 12
Polarity Type B (patch cable)
Colour any
Length As short as possible (suggested <25m, up to 100m)

The recommended qSFP+ optical fibre cables for Cyan are:

Manufacturer Product
Senko MPO Female 12 Fibers Type B LSZH OM4 (OM3) 50/125 Multimode
Fibertronics Female to Female, Multimode, OM4, 50/125, ONFP, Method B

Fibertronics 3m, 12 Fiber MTP Cable, Multimode OM4, MTP - MTP is available here. If you have any questions or concerns about optical fiber requirements, please do not hesitate to contact us for further information.

Mechanical

Cyan conforms to a 3U form factor and 19-inch rack. A mechanical diagram can be found here .

RF Chain

Simulated RF chain performance (based on component specifications) yield the simulated performance indicated in Table 1 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 section.