112-Gbps High Speed Serial Links to Interconnect Direct RF Sampling ADCs and Digital High Throughput Satellite Processors

Novel developments, in the field of mixed-signal integrated circuit design, reduce the contribution of the ADC power within the overall receiver architecture. These novel developments can be applied to mmWave frequencies, enabling direct RF sampling up to Ka-Band and beyond. Coupling this with low ADC resolution, acceptable for digital beamforming to support high throughput tasks, will make the early digitisation of the signal in the RF chain a competitive solution. This article addresses the need for high speed serial links to transfer the digitised data, collected from the Ka-band capable data converters to the digital telecom processor. 112 Gbps was selected the most interesting, considering state-of-the-art high speed interconnect rates. A power assessment is also presented in the article comparing potential deployments of such interconnect.