TimIQ Hardware
The TimIQ system is an IQ modulator allowing to phase shift a radio frequency clock with a resolution of 40 fs and an accuracy of 8 ps. It is a join development between Synchrotron SOLEIL and MAX IV. The software is described in the project TimIQ Software.
The input RF clock (352 MHz or 3 GHz) is phase shifted by an IQ modulator which is controlled through an 18 bits Digital to Analog Convertor (DAC). The output clock is delivered either directly at 3 GHz for MAX IV or at 88 MHz after dividing the frequency by 32 for SOLEIL. Two frequency mixers are used to measure the output to input phase shift. To improve the measurement’s sensitivity, the input of one of the mixer is shifted by 90°. All components are managed with a FPGA. It transmits the data to an ARM microprocessor running a Linux operating system with an Apache web server. The system can be controlled through Tango devices, python scripts or even with a simple web browser.
TimIQ has been designed with open source softwares:
This repository holds the TimIQ hardware, CAD and FPGA code.
TimIQ