Linear Technology's demonstration circuit 2459A has LTC1668, 50Msps, 16-bit DAC. This high performance DAC is very popular in applications where the audio range and analog frequency content between a few megahertz are used.
This device is a complete redesign of the original demonstration circuit. Several signal conditioning options are available for analog output, and digital signals can be provided by one of several low-cost, easy-to-use FPGA development boards. Sample FPGA code is provided that generates digital sine wave data for a DAC.
Demonstration boards for semiconductor products enable synergy between the "manufacturer" community and production design. A 50Msps DAC requires a carefully arranged circuit board and a digital signal source. A benchtop digital pattern generator is a tool of choice, but if you don't own a benchtop digital pattern generator and you only need to evaluate a DAC, it would be an expensive proposal. Fortunately, there are many boards in the Maker community that provide the right combination of functionality, ease of use, and low cost. Such boards give manufacturers access to true high-performance devices, sample code, and well-placed PC boards for projects and prototyping.
One of the digital connectors on the board is directly compatible with Embedded Micro's popular "Mojo" Spartan 6 FPGA board. Mojo also has an on-board ATmega32U4 processor with Arduino Bootloader, which provides options to control the LTC1668, or adds additional analog and mixed-signal functions using Linduino code.
