Microwave Journal
www.microwavejournal.com/articles/11808-octal-adcs-enable-significant-power-savings-in-medical-ultrasound-systems

Octal ADCs Enable Significant Power Savings in Medical Ultrasound Systems

September 28, 2011

Hittite Microwave Corp. is featuring a new set of octal 12-bit Analog-to-Digital Converters, the HMCAD1102, HMCAD1101 and HMCAD1100 which complements Hittite’s ultra low power ADC products.

Tailored to meet the strong demand for power reduction in high performance medical ultrasound applications, the HMCAD1102, HMCAD1101 and HMCAD1100 family are Octal 12 & 13-Bit ADCs which operate from 20 to 80 MSPS. Both 12-bit and 14-bit LVDS output modes are available and can be selected through the SPI control interface. Noise performance (SNR) at 50 MSPS with 8 MHz input frequency and 14-bit output is typically 72.2 dB and 71 dB is worst case. Pin compatible with the ADS527x and ADS528x families from Texas Instruments, power dissipation at 50 MSPS is 40 mW per channel, including LVDS outputs.

The HMCAD1102, HMCAD1101 and HMCAD1100 family has a power down mode dissipating less than 10 µW and an unprecedented wake-up time of 18 µs. In addition, there is a sleep mode with 0.5 µs wake-up time, and power dissipation in sleep mode is only 3 mW per channel. These idle modes allow the user to further reduce the average power dissipation by switching the converter off during idle periods. The average power dissipation can be reduced by as much as 75 percent, creating tremendous impact in systems where power dissipation is critical. The superior noise performance, low power operating modes and flexibility of the HMCAD110x family have begun to resonate with customers; consequently these devices are being adopted by several global medical ultrasound manufacturers.

All three ADCs can be evaluated with the Hittite EasySuite™ evaluation kits, EKIT01-HMCAD1102, EKIT01-HMCAD1101 and EKIT01-AD1100.The evaluation kits are based on Xilinx® FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card) SP601 standard motherboards, and feature Hittite evaluation boards with on-board ADCs connected to the Xilinx board through an FMC connector. Hittite’s pre-loaded EasyStack™ firmware performs FPGA processing, while the EasySuite™ PC software tool performs ADC configuration, data capture and performance analysis.

The HMCAD1102, HMCAD1101 and HMCAD1100 ADCs are housed in a 9 x 9 mm plastic leadless surface mount package and provide excellent temperature stability over the -40° to +85°C temperature range. Samples and evaluation PC boards for all SMT packaged products are available from stock and can be ordered via the company's e-commerce site or via direct purchase order.