Design and evaluation of a low-level RF control system analog/digital receiver for the ILC main LINACs

The proposed RF distribution scheme for the two 15 km long ILC LINACs uses one klystron to feed 26 superconducting RF cavities operating at 1.3 GHz. For a precise control of the vector sum of the signals coming from the SC cavities, the control system needs a high-performance, low-cost, reliable and modular multichannel receiver. At Fermilab we developed a 96-channel, 1.3 GHz analog/digital receiver for the ILC LINAC LLRF control system. In this paper we present a balanced design approach to the specifications of each receiver section, the design choices made to fulfill the goals and a description of the prototyped system. The design is tested by measuring standard performance parameters, such as noise figure, linearity and temperature sensitivity. Measurements show that the design meets the specifications and it is comparable to other similar systems developed at other laboratories, in terms of performance.