Granita RF Board ​

The Granita is a RFNM daughterboard named after the Granita chip from Arctic Semiconductors. It is similar in performance to the IceWings, for which a public page is available.

• 10-7200 MHz operation: 600 to 7200 MHz directly via the Granita chip, with an external RFFC2071 mixer extending it down to 10 MHz.
• Concurrent transmission and reception on two different frequencies, or two different receive channels active at the same time.
• Two low phase noise synthesizers, each connected to a receive path, to allow tuning one PLL while using the other in a ping-pong manner to sweep extremely fast while sampling the same RF input (switched at the frontend).
• Complex frontend with 13 preselection filters, several LNAs, two chained transmit amplifiers and variable attenuators. Transmission power of around 20 dBm. Find a block diagram of the frontend here.
• Two embedded antennas covering most of the operating frequency, Pulse W3796 and Partron ACS5200HFAUWB.

Current development status ​

Power, clocking, frontend and basic operation are verified. Not the entire frequency range was tested, and there are important I/Q imbalances that might be the result of a deeper issue.