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| 14 | Understanding the Magic Inside the RFSoC The modern world might appear to be digital. However, it is analog, especially when it comes to the communication and RADAR technologies that enable our increasingly interconnected and automated world. As communication systems move to fifth-generation network capabilities, these communication systems face increasing demands for high-speed, low-latency networks to support mobile connectivity. These demands are driven by changing usages such as video streaming and the Internet of Things (IoT) and the fourth industrial revolution, which supports the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT). The solution must also adapt to the different geographical constraints on frequency bands and regulatory environments. Similarly, RADAR technologies must provide higher resolutions in smaller, more power-efficient, tightly integrated solutions as this technology is deployed across more applications such as automotive RADAR and guided robotics. The Xilinx Radio Frequency System-on-Chip (RFSoC), with the multi-giga sample analog-to-digital (ADC) and digital-to-analog (DAC) converters, enables developers to create tightly integrated RF solutions for leading-edge communication and RADAR applications. Of course, it is not just the RF-ADC and RF-DAC within the RFSoC, making it so suitable for these high-performance designs. The RFSoC also includes a processing system that combines quad-core Arm ® Cortex ® -A53 64-bit processors with real-time Arm ® Cortex ® -R5 32-bit processors and modern programmable logic. This programmable logic and processing systems enable the implementation of communications and RADAR algorithms. But how does the RFSoC combine the high-performance digital and analog circuits? Let us take a deep dive look at several of the crucial elements of the RFSoC. Mixing Analog and Digital The Xilinx RFSoC is implemented using 16nm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) technology. This is usually associated with high-performance digital solutions and not high-performance converters. However, using digital calibration and equalization techniques, it is possible to implement both high-speed ADCs and DACs and high-performance digital systems on the same CMOS technology. For ADC conversion, the RFSoC uses an interleaved pipelined successive approximation register (SAR) converter architecture. This uses several parallel sub-RF ADC blocks, which are interleaved to provide the sampling bandwidth required. Each ADC and DAC contain more functionality than just the base ADC or DAC convertor. In addition to the