Analyser duo for cellular and wireless
01 September 2007
As more products are developed for the increasingly-mobile world, Agilent has added the N9010A EXA signal analyser to its X series of instruments.
This economy class analyser, announced at a conference in Rome, is designed to provide the degree of throughput required by today’s complex and highly integrated components and modules. It is LXIClass C-compliant with 100 based-T LAN, GPIB and seven USB 2.0 ports. It is also the first economy-class signal analyser with Open Windows XP Professional OS.
It is suitable for use with multiple cellular technologies, providing pre-configured test routines for SM/EDGE, 802.16e Mobile WiMAX, W-CDMA, HSDPA/HSUPA and phase noise applications. The measure mode switching speeds are less than 75msec for a fast and seamless change between the modes and the 89600 VSA (vector signal analysis) software.
Remote measurement capabilities, such as sweep/trace transfer, local updates, marker peak search and mode switching are via LAN, GPIB or USB 2.0 and can decrease manufacturing time pinpointing signal quality issues, and troubleshooting and diagnostic capabilities.
The EXA analyser supports multiple frequency ranges from 9kHz to 3.6GHz, 7GHz, 13.6GHz and 26.5GHz. There is an internal pre amplifier option up to 3.6GHz and standard analysis bandwidths of 10MHz and a 13dBm third order intercept, -14dBm/Hz displayed average noise level, without pre-amp and 66dB W-CDMA dynamic range. In addition, a digital 14bit ADC IF section enables a 0.4dB total absolute amplitude accuracy. The dynamic range is maximised with an option 2dB mechanical step attenuator over the frequency range and an option 1dB electronic attenuator to 3.6GHz for manufacturing use. (www.agilent.com/find/exa)
The company has also addressed the impact of noisy signals, in modern communications, component manufacture and aerospace/defence equipment. A low noise signal to noise ration can affect TV antennae, which need good reception; the range of radar, where it can hinder object identification and bit error rates, resulting in dropped calls in modern mobile phone calls. The PNA-X network analyser is a single connection, multiple measurement analyser, with source-corrected noise figure measurement option and with vector error correction. It is designed for developing and testing low-noise transistors, amplifiers and transmit/receive modules up to 26.5GHz.
A source-corrected noise figure option provides S-parameter and noise figure mesaurements as well as harmonics, compression and intermodulation distortion, particularly required in high reliability and wireless communications test where measurements can often be difficult to collect as the noiuse source cannot be connected directly to the device under test. If the signal to noise ratio can be improved, transmitter power can be reduced, resulting in smaller batteries. One of the problems with measuring the noise figure is that in the traditional 50Ù environment, the noise figure varies with source impedance, hindering noise parameter analysis.
As test systems do not have perfect 50Ù source impedances. Conventional noise figure systems may introduce significant error due to non-ideal source match. In addition, cabling and switches that separate devices from the noise source in ATE systems can add loss and mismatch.
The 10MHz to 26.5GHz PNA-X analyser can measure at 42msec/pt, or up to 35 times faster than using traditional external sources, according to Dan Dunn, of Agilent’s component test division. He goes on to explain that it is the industry’s only analyser with built in pulse modulators and pulse generators. With a single connection, it can provide an integrated noise figure and the vector error element increases accuracy parameters, including the display noise figure, to give an insight into the device.
New features include true mode stimulus application to test balanced or differential devices. It can measure power-added efficiency for power amplifier test and has enhanced response calibration for the same application. This addition has a wider IF bandwidth for faster pulsed-RF measurements, common in transmit/receive module testing.
The two or four-port network analyser, has connectivity via LAN, USB and GPIB, a Windows-based open architecture and a frequency converter measurement application. (www.agilent.com/find/pna-x)
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