Minimizing the Signal Chain with Direct RF Technology

Feb. 3, 2023

Mercury Systems' Ken Hermanny and Rodger Hosking discuss the company's deployment of Direct RF technology in its signal-processing products for defense and aerospace applications.

David Maliniak

Related To: Microwaves & RF

This video is part of TechXchange Talks.

While it's not a brand-spanking-new technology, Direct RF receiver architectures are now coming to the fore in numerous aerospace and defense applications, such as radar and electronic warfare. Direct RF architectures bring a host of advantages. For one, they eliminate the need for a mixer or local oscillator for frequency downconversion. A wideband RF analog-to-digital converter (ADC) digitizes the RF signal directly as opposed to operating on an IF signal of lower frequency, reducing complexity, risk, cost per channel, and, critically, SWaP. At the same time, the architecture boosts performance, latency, and channel density.

Among vendors in the signal-processing space that have embraced Direct RF, Mercury Systems is at the forefront. The company offers Direct RF-based signal chains in the forms of both an RF system-in-package (SiP), exemplified in its RFS1140, and at board level, most recently in its new DRF3182 Direct RF processing module.

In this video, Mercury Systems' Ken Hermanny and Rodger Hosking discuss the company's deployment of DirectRF technology in its signal-processing products for defense and aerospace applications.

Check out more TechXchange Talks videos.

Links

About the Author

David Maliniak | Executive Editor, Microwaves & RF

I am Executive Editor of Microwaves & RF, an all-digital publication that broadly covers all aspects of wireless communications. More particularly, we're keeping a close eye on technologies in the consumer-oriented 5G, 6G, IoT, M2M, and V2X markets, in which much of the wireless market's growth will occur in this decade and beyond. I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, developers, and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our contributor's packet, in which you'll find an article template and lots more useful information on how to properly prepare content for us, and send to me along with a signed release form.

About me:

In his long career in the B2B electronics-industry media, David Maliniak has held editorial roles as both generalist and specialist. As Components Editor and, later, as Editor in Chief of EE Product News, David gained breadth of experience in covering the industry at large. In serving as EDA/Test and Measurement Technology Editor at Electronic Design, he developed deep insight into those complex areas of technology. Most recently, David worked in technical marketing communications at Teledyne LeCroy, leaving to rejoin the EOEM B2B publishing world in January 2020. David earned a B.A. in journalism at New York University.