PXIe-5641R interfacing with 5673E and 5663E up and down converters

[mbaudot]

Hello, 

I would like to know if the 5641R can interface with 5673E VSG and 5663E VSA and use their digital up and down converters ?

If yes, how the driver handle that and what is the API to use.

Thank you.

[Chris_W.]

The quick answer is no, with some caveats.

You definitely can't user the 5641R with the 5673E without jumping through some major hoops that require the use of external Baluns. The reason is that the 5673E is a direct IQ upconverter that has differential I and Q inputs. So, the complexity of doing that would far surpass the benefit you would get from using that type of setup and there are too many considerations that would very likely come into play during any application development.

The 5663E is possible to use with the 5641R, however, only for certain frequency ranges due to the IF frequency of the 5601 downconverter. For particular RF frequencies the IF if 187.5MHz, but for a very small subset, it's actually at 53MHz. This means you could really only use this combination for RF frequencies that use the 53MHz IF.

There are too many issues preventing this to be a seamless integration. The 5641R works fairly well with the 5610 and 5600 up/downconverters for their entire operating range (2.7GHz).

-Chris