A 1200 Megabits/Sec, Gray Code, Analog to Digital Converter

This paper considers a novel 9 GHz microwave carrier system which can sample a baseband analog input signal at a 200 MHz rate and encode into Gray Code 6-bit words (64 levels), giving a bit rate of 1200 megabits/second. This performance is obtained through the use of a system employing the microwave counterpart of a serial type gray coder first described by B. D. Smith. In this new system the baseband analog signal amplitude is replaced by microwave carrier amplitude, while base-band analog signal polarity is replaced by microwave carrier phase.