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www.southgatearc.org
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RF Engines wins grant to develop FPGA based radioIsle of Wight-based RF Engines (RFEL) has been granted £65,000 by the Government to research an FPGA-based DC to 5.84GHz radio for production. From Isle of Wight-based RF Engines (RFEL) has been granted £65,000 by the Government to research an FPGA-based DC to 5.84GHz radio for production. “The research element of the programme is costing a bit over £100,000,” CEO John Summers told EW. “If it works, we hope there will be more funding for development.” RFEL specialises in high-end signal processing algorithms for FPGAs, frequently for multi-band radios, and in the last two years has increasingly supplied RF and FPGA hardware to support its code. The grant, from the South East Development Agency (SEEDA), is to examine possibilities for a flexible receiver architecture that is reconfigurable on-the-fly. “We have a high degree of confidence on the digital processing part of such a product,” said Summers. “We need to look at the division between the RF front end and the digital part. That jagged line is where part of the challenge is - digitising at high speed and moving the digits towards the front.” A report, plus breadboards, is expected in the first quarter of 2008. “We would hope to move on to development straight away,” said Summers. What form the final product will take is part of the study, but Summers envisages a card for motherboard mounting or a free-standing box with RF in one end and digits out of the other. Applications are foreseen in commercial wireless communications, such
as wireless basestations, where the single radio could replace several
types of traditional signal chains. Test and measurement is another potential The wideband digital receiver will mean a larger volume of hardware than the firm has had made before. “This is an evolutionary step,” said Summers. “Our core business is still customised intellectual property, but we have been progressively involved in hardware over the last two or three years. We have done design-prototype-produce although the most we have done so far is 50.” Last year, the company completed a digital radio receiver architecture study for the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) Laboratories. RF Engines
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