Evaluation Engineering - 14

RF/MICROWAVE TEST

using a hardware-in-the-loop setup," they
concluded.

Device perspective

TotalTemp Technologies Model SD288 cryogenically cooled thermal platform.

serve in both R&D and production test,
supporting customers' challenges in obtaining effective heat transfer for their
RF modules. He cited an easy-to-use
temperature controller with advanced
automation and temperature control as
a key feature of the platform.

Ground-vehicle radar
dSPACE addresses the ground vehicle
market. "For over 30 years, dSPACE has
been delivering tools to the ground vehicle
engineering community for developing
and validating in-vehicle software," said
Vivek Moudgal, vice president of business
development, dSPACE Inc., and Andreas
Himmler, senior product manager, autonomous driving systems, dSPACE GmbH.
"For the community working in the ADAS
and AD domains, dSPACE has developed
both hardware- and software-based tools
to allow the community to speed up their
design and verification work and deliver
robust and reliable functionality to the
consumers."
They added that the company has been
integrating best-in-class products into its
offerings for automotive radar applications. "In early 2019, dSPACE partnered
with ITS and miro·sys and acquired IP,
which will continue to be refined to provide the engineering community with
the tools they have come to expect from
dSPACE." DARTS (dSPACE Automotive
Radar Test System) is the company's offering to the automotive radar development and testing community.
"In early 2019, dSPACE released a series
of compact DARTS systems (DARTS 9030M, DARTS 9020-S and DARTS 9030-MS)

14

EVALUATION ENGINEERING JULY 2020

with very high capability and performance," Moudgal and Himmler said.
"These devices are designed to serve multiple segments of the value chain, from
radar chip designers to ECU developers,
as well as OEMs for function validation.
More recently (at the end of 2019), dSPACE
released a new offering-DARTS 9018D, designed for end-of-line use by Tier 1
suppliers, OEMs, and the aftermarket.
Depending on the model, the available
bandwidth is 1.2 GHz or 4 GHz with a
simple change of the radio front-end (one
connection for each RX and TX), the base
unit can be switched to work supporting
K-band radars to E-band radars or viceversa. The K-band range supports 23 to
26 GHz, and the E-band range supports
75 to 82 GHz as a standard."
They continued, "Based on application needs, DARTS devices are capable
of simulating targets at distances of less
than 1 m, all the way to 1,000 m, with
6- or 10-cm resolution over the entire
distance simulation range. With the capability to simulate Doppler frequencies
of ±700 km/h, these devices are capable of
being used for all known ground-vehicle
applications where relative speed measurement is needed."
They added that DARTS devices can
be used in R&D, production testing, and
field testing as well as in aftermarket-
body shops, Periodic Technical Inspection
(PTI), etc.-applications. "Their compact
size and ability to be powered by DC
power sources makes them extremely
portable and easy to package," they said.
"Another specialized use case for DARTS
is for closed-loop function validation

Randy Oltman, RF and high-speed instrumentation segment director at Analog
Devices, cited two main challenges to
the RF test and measurement industry, both related to 5G. "First, millimeter-wave 5G continues to push
towards 50 GHz with successful
auctions in the 39-GHz and 47-GHz
bands," he said. "3GPP defines frequencies above 50 GHz, but band allocations
and licensing worldwide for 50 to 55 GHz
is less clear. However, test and measurement makers designing new equipment
want to be considerate of future needs
and look to push frequency coverage as
high as possible."
Oltman continued, "Second, OTA methods are not finalized for testing mmWave
5G devices with embedded antennas.
Finding an appropriate method that allows rapid testing of mmWave devices in
production will be essential to the a mass
rollout of mmWave devices. "
Oltman said Analog Devices' advanced
RF modeling and packaging expertise
enables development of novel and higher performance parts. "RF-considerate
multidie-packaging dramatically reduces
parasitics leading to superior broadband
performance, highly important for instrumentation," he said. "Further, these multidie devices integrate common functions
which are usually discrete, greatly reducing PCB area and simplifying the design
through fewer parts."
Oltman cited several recently introduced devices, including the ADPA7006.
"This new part joins the recently launched
ADPA7002 and ADPA7005," he said.
"These 18- to 44-GHz mmWave amplifiers , with of power levels up to 1 W, are
available both in SMT and die form. These
devices offer a unique novel combination
of power and bandwidth, with up to +42dBm OIP3 and 31-dBm P1dB."
Other recently introduced parts include the ADF4372 16-GHz single-chip
synthesizer, ADMV8420/ADMV8416/
ADMV8432 tunable band pass filters,
ADRF5043 SOI switch, LT3072 dual
LDO, and LTM8078 Silent Switcher. With
Evaluation Engineering

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