Evaulation_Engineering_August_2020 - 10

SIGNAL AND SPECTRUM ANALYZERS

MHz of bandwidth and many independent
radio chains (6+)."
"This year, the clear ramp up to
mmWave 5G has been a big challenge for
many customers," said Tipton at Rohde &
Schwarz. "Converting from conducted testing to OTA testing brings new challenges.
Many customers have needed to learn that
testing at 3 GHz does not work in the same
way as at 28, 39, or 44 GHz. Here, Rohde &
Schwarz has acted as a consultant to our
customers due to our long experience in
testing at such high frequencies."
According to Maxwell at Rohde &
Schwarz, test time represents a key challenge. "As 5G begins to mature, exhaustive
testing is underway to verify that these designs work in every condition in order to
meet customers' diverse needs," he said.
Fast testing is essential to managing capital equipment budgets, in addition to fully
characterizing and validating 5G designs
and hitting the early market windows.
"We see performance of radar systems
advancing in automotive for self-driving
vehicles," he said. "It's important to equip
vehicles that can resolve smaller objects from larger objects for better safety, and this is achieved by using wider
bandwidths."
MathWorks addresses signal analysis from a software perspective, as described by Eric Wetjen, product manager, test and measurement products, and
Houman Zarrinkoub, product manager,
wireless and communications products.
Zarrinkoub said, "In the 5G era, new millimeter-wave frequency bands are being
introduced. Distortions and impediments
to wireless communication must be analyzed and verified for these frequencies,
and new devices must be built and tested
at these frequencies."
Wetjen explained that configuring test
equipment and SDRs to validate 5G and
other communications signals over the
air (OTA) can take too much time and is
cumbersome to set up.
"Continuous evolution of communication standards like 5G and Wi-Fi are aiming to address the insatiable need for speed
and throughput in wireless networks,"
added Zarrinkoub. "To satisfy these needs,
new innovative algorithms such as massive
MIMO and beamforming are introduced.

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This, in turn, adds significant complexity
to the design of wireless systems."

Products
SIGLENT's Chonko pointed out, "We
have expanded our standard spectrumanalyzer platform to 7.5 GHz with the new
SSA3075X Plus, added two new real-time
spectrum analyzers in the SSA3075X-R
Series, and also added a 7.5-GHz spectrum
and vector network analyzer model, the
SVA1075X. All of our analyzers have swept
superheterodyne analysis and optional
firmware upgrades to provide automatic
measurement and signal demodulation,"
he said. "The Plus, X-R, and SVA models
have distance-to-fault, vector-signalanalysis, and other toolkits to help with
more specialized measurements. With
each product in these categories, engineers
are getting serious measurement performance on a flexible platform that won't
break the bank."
Recent products from Keysight include
the N9021B MXA signal analyzer, which
ranges from 10 Hz to 50 GHz and provides
the widest analysis bandwidth in its class,
allowing for analysis of next-generation
wireless signals, according to Leeke and
D'A more. "With RTSA options, the MXA
sees through the complexity of challenging
signals, including debugging transmitter
designs for elusive transients."
They continued, "Using PathWave
X-Series Measurement Applications and
PathWave Vector Signal Analysis (VSA),
different application bundles allow you to
tailor your measurement solution to your
specific industry application. This includes
advanced demodulation of the latest standards and formats. The low phase noise
and high bandwidth allow for the accurate
analysis of complex signals, including 5G
NR measurements with EVM as low as 1%."
Keysight also just released the MXR
oscilloscope, which Leeke and D'A more
explained combines the analysis power of
both time and frequency domains in one
instrument. "With up to eight channels,
the MXR provides faster test speeds than
ever before, from 500 MHz to 6 GHz," they
said. "By supporting over 20 protocols from
triggering, complete decoding, and compliance tests, the MXR helps to view fastswitching signals and ensure your device

meets compliance standards. With preconfigured tests and high waveform memory,
tests can be run over and over to ensure
consistent results. The ASIC analog performance allows this instrument to operate
in frequency domain, being able to display
the spectrum characteristic of the signal.
The eight phase-coherent channels can be
used simultaneously, and 310-MHz RTSA
is available to analyze the most challenging signal configuration."

Keysight N9021B MXA signal analyzer.
Copyright Keysight Technologies. Reproduced with
permission.

Tipton at Rohde & Schwarz said that
the company continues to address highfrequency, high-bandwidth requirements.
"We released options for our R&S FSW
signal and spectrum analyzer to address
bandwidths of 4, 6, and 8.3 GHz," he said.
"This is already starting to pave the way
for 6G research." He also sees impacts on
the satellite industry where transponder
frequencies are moving to the Q/V bands,
with bandwidths approaching 4 GHz, and
expected to increase over time.
According to Maxwell, Rohde & Schwarz
in April introduced the R&S FSV3000 and
R&S FSVA3000 midrange signal and spectrum analyzers, covering 44 GHz with up
to 400 MHz of bandwidth. "The R&SF
SV3000 is designed to help users set up
complex measurements in the simplest
and fastest way possible, while the R&S
FSVA3000 enables users to perform highly
demanding measurement applications
such as linearizing power amplifiers and
characterizing frequency-agile signals." He
described them as cloud-ready with fast
signal processing and a 10GbE connection.
Maxwell also said that the R&S
Spectrum Rider FPH handheld spectrum
analyzer offers customers a versatile, userfriendly instrument with a rugged design.
"In addition to featuring a state-of-the-art
color, touchscreen and on-screen keyboard

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