Gain Distortion and Hybrids

This is episode 65 of Get Your Tech On, our show on All Things DOCSIS.  I’m Brady Volpe, Founder of The Volpe Firm and Nimble This. With us today is John Downey,  CMTS Technical Leader at Cisco Systems, welcome back John. With special guests Bob Simmers – Sr. Marketing Manager, CATV & Broadband Access Products Qorvo and Rainer Hillermeier – General Manager Design and Operations Qorvo Germany.  Find out about broadband amplification and how it works.  Join in on the exciting conversation of hybrids in the cable network. We will cover topics on broadband gain, distortions, compression, power consumption and more.

In our Power Hour of Cable on All Things DOCSIS join us and drop your comments into the chat. 

To set the stage for the conversation, Bill and Rainer will review some slides with us.

Overview of Gain, distortion and hybrids see YouTube video:

• Core of RF amplifiers
• Distortions, SNR
• Unsung héros, understand gain block
• History of gain blocks 2 to 13 channels
  • everything was tubs
  • solid state amplifiers
  • Same package used for 52 years and today – plastic top item – gain stage
  • Push pull design allowed bandwidth gains over time
• What is a gain block?
• Gain stage does all the amplification of coaxial network
• CSO or CTB something you do not struggle with today
• CCIN / MER is the only important thing
• CPD is the same thing as CSO and CTB
• Recent history
  • bandwidth expansion
  • RF power
  • What happens when hybrid goes down
  • Gas introduced and mimic
  • 2015 from 24 to 34 volt gan hybrid – DOCSIS 3.1 – fiber deep
  • Power supplies needed upgraded – 34 volt is now standard
  • Benefits better efficiency, better output power
  • gan required higher voltage
• ESD – extended spectrum
• Gain and level allow extended spectrum
• 70 dBmv aggregated. Lowest loss
• Per channel bases
• Deep fiber node application is a good example – high levels
• Old amplifiers easy to upgrade?
• Loading with OFDM channels
• 550 or 750 MHz system
• 860 MHz equipment out there and how does it impact distortion
• Distortion – how upgrades are impacted
• Running in the high end – channel loading and the whole amplifier is impacted
• Efficiency of products 3.5% efficiency
• DC power
• Future road map 3 GHz / 1.8 GHz
• Upstream impacts
  • 500 to 700 MHz – gas ICs
  • DOCSIS 4.0 nodes
  • Remote PHY
  • Future no hybrids
• AGC and equalization
• Solutions to dissipate power
• Gain blocks – high power devices – power doublers
• Power doublers to help minimize distortion
• Details of distortion
• Higer frequency TCP
• Step downs in DOCSIS 4.0 spec
• 4k QAM
• OFDM
• AI and machine learning
• CPE
• Efficiency improvements
• CORE or RPD?
• and more

SCTE Expo 2020 Virtual (Free to Attend all Workshops)

https://expo.scte.org/ 

October 12-15, 2020

What Does A Wider Upstream Path Mean for Signal Leakage Monitoring & Reporting?

Brady Volpe – Volpe Firm and Nimble This, Ron Hranac – Cisco, John Chrostowski – Comcast, Kyle Hohman – Shaw

Wednesday, October 14th 9:30am EDT

Free to Attend the workshops

How COVID-19 Catalyzed the Network – with John Downey
Wednesday, October 14, 2020: 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM EDT

End Podcast

John thank you for your time today. This was a great episode.  Our next Episode 64 September 11th.   

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