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IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques

Superconductive digital instantaneous frequency measurement subsystem

Guo‐Chun Liang, Chien-Fu Shih, R.S. Withers, Ben Cole, Marie E. Johansson, L. P. Suppan

Published Jan 1, 1993• 35 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A 5-b high-temperature-superconductive digital instantaneous frequency-measurement (DIFM) subsystem has been constructed for the determination of the frequency of unknown signals over a 500-MHz bandwidth, centered on 4 GHz, with a resolution of +or-7.8 MHz. The subsystem contains a cryogenic section with five discriminator modules using superconductive delay lines, GaAs mixers, and power dividers. The subsystem also has a room-temperature GaAs limiting amplifier and a silicon postprocessor. With a single-tone CW (continuous-wave) input between -40 dBm and +10 dBm, the frequency quantization boundaries of the subsystem are, on average, 3.1 MHz from their design values.>

DOI
10.1109/22.260730

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A 5-b high-temperature-superconductive digital instantaneous frequency-measurement (DIFM) subsystem has been constructed for the determination of the frequency of unknown signals over a 500-MHz bandwidth, centered on 4 GHz, with a resolution of +or-7.8 MHz. The subsystem contains a cryogenic section with five discriminator modules using superconductive delay lines, GaAs mixers, and power dividers. The subsystem also has a room-temperature GaAs limiting amplifier and a silicon postprocessor. With a single-tone CW (continuous-wave) input between -40 dBm and +10 dBm, the frequency quantization boundaries of the subsystem are, on average, 3.1 MHz from their design values.>
A 5-b high-temperature-superconductive digital instantaneous frequency-measurement (DIFM) subsystem has been constructed for the determination of the frequency of unknown signals over a 500-MHz bandwidth, centered on 4 GHz, with a resolution of +or-7.8 MHz. The subsystem contains a cryogenic section with five discriminator modules using superconductive delay lines, GaAs mixers, and power dividers. The subsystem also has a room-temperature GaAs limiting amplifier and a silicon postprocessor. With a single-tone CW (continuous-wave) input between-40 dBm and +10 dBm, the frequency quantization boundaries of the subsystem are, on average, 3.1 MHz from their design values.>
A five-bit high-temperature-superconductive digital instantaneous frequency-measurement (DIFM) subsystem has been constructed for the determination of the frequency of unknown signals over a 500 MHz bandwidth, centered on 4 GHz, with a resolution of +/- 7.8 MHz. The subsystem contains a cryogenic section with five discriminator modules utilizing superconductive delay lines, GaAs mixers, and power dividers. With a single-tone cw input between -40 dBm and +10 dBm, the frequency quantization boundaries of the subsystem are, on average, 3.1 MHz from their design values. This system demonstrates the potential system-level application of high-temperature superconductive electronics in instrumentation, communication, radar, and electronic warfare.
We have constructed a five-bit high temperature superconductive digital instantaneous frequency measurement (DIFM) subsystem capable of determining the frequency of unknown signals over a 500-MHz bandwidth, centered on 4 GHz, with a resolution of 17.8 MHz. The system consists of three parts: a limiting amplifier and filter, a comparator and data processing unit operating at room temperature, and a cryogenic subsystem containing five discriminator modules based on superconductive delay lines, GaAs mixers and power dividers. With a single-tone CW input between -40 dBm and +10 dBm, the frequency quantization boundaries of the subsystem are, on average, 3.1 MHz from their design values. This system was built for the High-Temperature Superconductor Space Experiment, Phase II (HTSSE II). It has passed all required qualification tests for vibration, shock and thermal cycling. The system is currently scheduled for satellite launch in fall 1996. Compared to a conventional system, the superconductive version of the DIFM is considerably smaller and provides enhanced resolution. In addition, the technology employed can be readily extended to a system with additional bits and wider instantaneous bandwidth. The system built demonstrates the potential for system-level applications of high-temperature superconductive electronics in instrumentation, communications, radar, and electronic warfare.
This paper presents a superconducting bandpass /spl Delta//spl Sigma/ modulator for direct analog-to-digital conversion of radio frequency signals in the gigahertz range. The design, based on a 2.23-GHz microstrip resonator and a single flux quantum comparator, exploits several advantages of superconducting electronics: the high quality factor of resonators, the fast switching speed of the Josephson junction, natural quantization of voltage pulses, and high circuit sensitivity. The modulator test chip includes an integrated acquisition memory for capturing output data at sampling rates up to 45 GHz. The small size (256 b) of the acquisition memory limits the frequency resolution of spectra based on standard fast Fourier transforms. Output spectra with enhanced resolution are obtained with a segmented correlation method. At a 42.6-GHz sampling rate, the measured SNR is 49 dB over a 20.8-MHz bandwidth, and a full-scale (FS) input is -17.4 dBm. At a 40.2-GHz sampling rate, the measured in-band noise is -57 dBFS over a 19.6-MHz bandwidth. The modulator test chip contains 4065 Josephson junctions and dissipates 1.9 mW at T=4.2 K.
Bandpass delta-sigma modulators digitize narrowband signals with high dynamic range and linearity. The required sampling rate is only a few times higher than the centre frequency of the input. This paper presents a superconducting bandpass delta-sigma modulator for direct analogue-to-digital conversion of RF signals in the GHz range. The input signal is capacitively coupled to one end of a microstrip transmission line, and a single flux quantum balanced comparator quantizes the current flowing out of the other end. Quantization noise is suppressed at the quarter-wave resonance of the transmission line (about 2 GHz in our design). Circuit performance at a 20 GHz sampling rate has been studied with several long JSIM simulations. Full-scale (FS) input sensitivity is 20 mV (rms), and in-band noise is -53 dBFS and -57 dBFS over bandwidths of 39 MHz and 19.5 MHz, respectively. In-band intermodulation distortion is better than -69 dBFS.