Massachusetts-based Spectrum Control has introduced its SCi Blocks ("sky blocks") ultra-miniature radio frequency (RF) and microwave downconverters and upconverters for electronic warfare (EW), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) applications.
According to developers, these next-generation, digitally enabled, plug-and-play RF devices address the size, cost and open-architecture requirements of emerging military and aerospace system designs. Additionally, the company is also introducing an OpenVPX RF transceiver, which offers RF signal handling with digital control and minimal interconnects.
Source: Spectrum Control
The modular products will be available in three tiers: RF systems-in-packages (RFSiPs), RF sticks and Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA)-aligned OpenVPX modules. The first products in this new family are high-performance wideband downconverters and upconverters that are designed to deliver a new level of size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C).
These RF and microwave downconverters and upconverters operate from 20 MHz to 18 GHz, for as much as 16 GHz of contiguous spectral coverage with 2 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth. The digital gateway has a four-wire interface for command and control with health and temperature monitoring.
Meanwhile, the downconverter stick offers a gain of 25 decibels and noise figure of 14 to 17 decibels across its frequency range. Other specifications include third order intercept (IP3) of 25 decibel mW and single tone spurious of more than 60 decibels relative to carrier, as well as IF calibration.
Additionally, the upconverter stick offers gain of 20 decibels, noise figure of 25 decibels, IP3 of 30 decibel mW, and single tone spurious of more than 55 decibels relative to carrier at 10 decibel mW input and maximum gain. It also has independent user-controllable input and output gain control of 31.5 decibels, in 0.5-decibel increments.
The downconverter and upconverter are housed in 13 cm by 2 cm packages that draw 8 W and 10 W, respectively. The downconverter and upconverter can be supplied on boards or in high-isolation hermetically sealed metal enclosures.
The wideband downconverter and upconverter sticks can be integrated into SCi Block's 3U eight-channel OpenVPX transceiver module in any combination to support as many as eight downconverter or eight upconverter channels.
These modules are SOSA-aligned in hardware and software, with a Modular Open Radio Frequency Architecture (MORA) device layer for configuration and control.
