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NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

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21–30 of 63 posts

Re: NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

#21
post #18
post #17

Sorry, u.fl connectors are horrible and I'll never buy a product that uses them.

I don't like them either, but I couldn't find a better way to provide the clock in/out feature and still fit in that area of the board. The optional OCXO on the opposite side of the U.FL connectors doesn't help (can't do edge-launch mmcx, for example), and if you move down you would ruin the legend for the user interface connector. But fair feedback, noted. I can't move the optional OCXO below the enclosure, as that…

I wouldn't change things on my account. I certainly understand the density advantage to u.fl connectors. They just grind my gears.

Best of luck with the project. I couldn't find anything on "Granita". Is it called "SnowWings" now?

Re: NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

#22
post #20

Just trying to get my head around SDR. What are some examples of practical use cases for a platform like this? What are the benefits of this SDR platform compared to other solutions?

This site has some great examples on what various inexpensive SDR hardware can be used for: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/. Use cases range from receiving weather satellite imagery, to reverse engineering radio protocols (e.g. for remote door openers). Several years ago I used an inexpensive DVB USB dongle containing the RTL2832U chip (which enables SDR), to sniff 2G/GSM broadcast packets.

Re: NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

#23
post #21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like them either, but I couldn't find a better way to provide the clock in/out feature and still fit in that area of the board. The optional OCXO on the opposite side of the U.FL connectors doesn't help (can't do edge-launch mmcx, for example), and if you move down you would ruin the legend for the user interface connector. But fair feedback, noted. I can't move the optional OCXO below the enclosure, as that…

I wouldn't change things on my account. I certainly understand the density advantage to u.fl connectors. They just grind my gears. Best of luck with the project. I couldn't find anything on "Granita". Is it called "SnowWings" now?

No, I think your feedback is fair, MMCX connectors are certainly more durable. Maybe the tradeoff there is that they are not as common, so I might need to include adapters as well. I would like to have them on the opposite side of the board, so that we can maybe enclose them with the CNC enclosure which would make it truly pull resistant.

The Granita is technically unreleased, the manufacturer has been making changes to the packaging of the chip as recently as a couple of months ago. It's based on the same silicon as the IceWings: https://arcticsemiconductor.com/icewings/

Re: NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

#24
post #20

Just trying to get my head around SDR. What are some examples of practical use cases for a platform like this? What are the benefits of this SDR platform compared to other solutions?

Many radio systems are already SDR, just closed. The benefits are the same as building anything into software rather than hardware: you can update it later, support more variations, etc. The downside is more power consumption, so cellphone radios are not usually completely SDR (not an expert on those so correct me if I'm wrong)

Re: NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

#25
post #20

Just trying to get my head around SDR. What are some examples of practical use cases for a platform like this? What are the benefits of this SDR platform compared to other solutions?

A few practical use cases that are not easily covered by similar platforms:

1) Direction finding thanks to the 8x 153 MSPS ADCs and coherent clocks.

2) Mixed domain analyzer: have one daughterboard act as a RF receiver, and at the same time sample an analogue voltage with the other one. This is a capability reserved to the most expensive of test equipment and lets you analyze how a RF switch is behaving (or do side channel attacks?).

3) Sample almost 600 MHz of bandwidth in real time, use the powerful DSP core to run FFTs on it and send the results over to a browser that implements a RTSA display. This lets you have a real-time view of the spectrum around you for just a few watts. Thanks to the double-PPLs on the Granita board, you can also sweep the spectrum very fast.

4) There is enough processing power onboard to enable RFNM as a 5G RedCap node. We are working with NXP to add an eSIM, so with the right software, this can become a fully-functional 5G UE and connect to the normal cell network. Don't care about 5G? You can write your own standard and deploy it on the same hardware (the limitation here is having access to NXP's DSP development tools, which might limit the processing to the beefy i.MX 8M Plus, but some cores will be available as binaries).

5) Technically, anything requiring an insane amount of ADCs and DACs. You can implement your own board, as the heavy lifting (the motherboard) is already done for you. You could prototype something easily with the development board that's on the website and turn it into a real design within weeks.

Re: NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

#27
post #17

Sorry, u.fl connectors are horrible and I'll never buy a product that uses them.

Where's the problem? Place the board into a housing, you want to do that anyway for shielding and to prevent random crap on your desk from damaging the board, and use u.fl to whatever socket type you prefer adapters.

Re: NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

#28
post #16

Cool, how much is it?

I can't commit to pricing before I have decided on a partner for the distribution (DIY vs Kickstarter vs Crowdsupply, they all come with different costs and tradeoffs), but $550 is my target retail price for the Motherboard + Granita + Dev Board + CNC enclosure combo. $450 if you are happy with the Granita Lite board. Everything will be sold separately. As a comparison, $550 would be 10x to 20x less expensive than wh…

This is amazing! I would buy one in this price range. What sort of help/contributions you need/expect from interested users? E.g. financial funding on CrowdSupply, beta testing, feature wishlist, etc.

Re: NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

#29
post #20

Just trying to get my head around SDR. What are some examples of practical use cases for a platform like this? What are the benefits of this SDR platform compared to other solutions?

Tons of applications and uses in electronic warfare and electronic intelligence gathering.

Also forms a lot of the basis of RADAR, though that's a separate use case.

To oversimplify: SDR allows you to build a radio based around math instead of complex electronics - or, at least fewer complex electronics. It sacrifices a bit of performance but confers a lot of the advantages you get in other software systems - updates, reconfigurability, etc.

Re: NXP LA9310: A new platform for SDR and the 10-year-old AD9361 RF Transceiver

#30
post #17

Sorry, u.fl connectors are horrible and I'll never buy a product that uses them.

Where's the problem? Place the board into a housing, you want to do that anyway for shielding and to prevent random crap on your desk from damaging the board, and use u.fl to whatever socket type you prefer adapters.

Here is a fast render of what the enclosure might look like (work in progress): https://i.imgur.com/AEYgLxU.png

The idea is however you get shielding and cooling, sit it on the desk upside down and have all the RFNM boards accessible from the top.

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