The JESD204A interface: key to broadband wireless system miniaturization

Bradley Loisel and Maury Wood, NXP Semiconductors; Harpinder Matharu, Xilinx Corporation

The new JEDEC JESD204A high-speed serial data-converter interface offers many system design and system cost advantages. NXP Semiconductors estimates that early adopters of this SerDes-based interface are realizing savings of 25 to 40% total cost of ownership (TCO), which quickly pays for the NRE (non-recurring engineering costs) such as expert-level specification competence, implementing the system change, testing the new system design, among others) which are associated with moving to this plug-and-play, point-to-point unidirectional interconnect.

One of the relatively under-appreciated performance advantages of JESD204A is lower electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency interference (RFI) and reduced mixed-signal crosstalk. Lower EMI/RFI allows the miniaturization of broadband wireless infrastructure subsystem, especially the radio transceiver boards, to an extent not possible with traditional LVDS parallel interfaces. The crosstalk is aggravated due to the high speed ADCs and DACs, RF mixers, RF demodulators, digitally-controlled voltage-controlled amplifiers (VGA) and RF low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) that must co-exist together in a shrinking printed circuit board (PCB) footprint, either as packaged ICs or bare dice in multi-chip modules (MCMs).

This article looks at the key attributes of the JESD204A interface standard and how it affects system design and configuration balanced against design priorities. To read it, click here.

You can also read these related, linked articles:

• Tutorial: the new JEDEC interface standard for data converters, Part 3 of 3
• Tutorial: the new JEDEC interface standard for data converters, Part 2 of 3
• Tutorial: the new JEDEC interface standard for data converters, Part 1 of 3
• Achieve sample synchronization among data converters
• JESD204A for wireless base station and radar systems

About the authors

Brad Loisel is an Application Engineer for NXP, supporting high-speed data-converter products in the Americas. He has more than 15 years of experience in RF/analog mixed signal product development in the consumer and defense electronics industries, and he has over 8 years experience in the semiconductor industry.

Maury Wood is Product Line General Manager, High Speed Converters for NXP. He has worked in the semiconductor business for 20 years, previously in marketing and application engineering positions at Analog Devices and Cypress Semiconductor. He is located in Caen, France.

Harpinder Matharu is a senior product manager in the communications business unit at Xilinx, San Jose, CA. He has worked in the communication semiconductor industry for more than 20 years, previously in marketing and systems architect positions at Integrated Device Incorporated.