Hardware, software, electronics

Wide spurious-free dynamic range certainly the goal for any IF amplifier. This is particularly true for OTH radar as well as other systems using high resolution digitizers. Recently introduced current feedback amplifiers offer exceptional 3rd order intermodulation intercepts at very low quiescent power levels, but have been plagued by relatively poor noise figures. Teaming these op amps with a simple transformer input coupling yields noise figures less than 7dB with 3rd order intercepts greater than 40dBm (for frequencies < 10MHz). Read more...