1022410 – 0001 Rev. 2
3–12 UMOD hardware theory of operation
Filtered I and Q channels are input to an analog quadrature
amplitude modulator to generate the desired modulation (see
figure 3-4 on page 3–12). BPSK and QPSK modulation formats
are supported.
QUADRATURE
SPLITTER
I
Q
TX
BASEBAND
TX LO
(FROM SYNTHESIZER)
Σ
MODULATED IF
Figure 3-4
Modulator circuit block diagram
The phase of the local oscillator (LO) signal from the transmit
synthesizer is split into 0- and 90-degree quadrature signals by an
integral phase splitter in the modulator. The LO frequency is at the
desired carrier frequency, so that the conversion from baseband to
IF takes place in a single step. This approach avoids the spurious
output signals caused by more complicated multiple conversion
transmit IF chains.
The transmit synthesizer generates the LO at the desired carrier
frequency (see figure 3-5 on page 3–13). The requirements of a
wide LO tuning range (52 to 88 MHz and 104 to 176 MHz) and a
small step size (less than 100 Hz) result in a cascaded-synthesizer
design. The first synthesizer in the chain is a
numerically-controlled oscillator (NCO) that is part of the
FIR/NCO application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The NCO
is constructed from a phase accumulator that generates a digital
phase ramp whose phase increment is programmable. The ramp is
converted to a digital sinusoid by a sine wave lookup table. The
output of the lookup table is quantized to the required number of
bits, and is processed by a noise-shaping filter that suppresses
quantization noise within a given bandwidth around the desired
output frequency.
Modulator
Transmit synthesizer