A 4-Bit, 5Gsps ADC board for the radio astronomy community

We have designed, manufactured and characterized a 5 Giga samples per second (5 Gsps), 4-bit, ADC printed circuit board (PCB). The board is compatible with the Field Programmable Gate Array(FPGA) platforms developed by the Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research (CASPER) community. The board can digitalize input radio frequencies from DC up to 2.5GHz with a flatness of 5dB. The ENOB ranges from 3.8 to 2.5 bits across the 2.5GHz band, the SFDR from 35dB to 25 dB, and the SINAD from 20dB to 12 dB respectively. The board enables direct detection for observations in the radio frequency range, and will save tremendous resources in the Intermediate Frequency (IF) distribution for observations in the microwave frequency region. We have delivered the boards to several world class radio observatories for the detection of celestial objects.