Evaluation Engineering - 8

INSTRUMENTATION

Chris Armstrong, director of product
marketing and SW applications, RIGOL
Technologies: "As complex RF modulation
continues to expand use in more electronic products, the need for advanced
signal-emulation capabilities continues
to grow. This is especially true of devices
operating in standard ISM bands where
interference and spectrum sharing are
becoming more important test points.
Traditional RF signal generators designed
for these relatively low-frequency carriers
were either too expensive or not capable
enough to emulate complex signals. One
of the key development trends is the requirement for complex and custom IQ signal emulation in cost-effective RF signal
generators."
Steve Fairbanks, senior director, marketing, products, and instrumentation at
Astronics Test Systems: "Today's signal
generators are reducing in overall size,
adding more channels per instrument
package, and providing more flexibility in programming. All of these trends
have made it possible to provide highperformance signal generators in small
form factors such as USB and PXI. These
technologies can then easily be integrated
in low-power-usage platforms for portable
products such as handheld instrument or
tablet-based instruments."

important include radar, quantum computing, advanced communication systems, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test
simulation, and electronic warfare."

simulation, and testing skills are needed.
Semiconductor manufacturers aren't really keeping up with market needs on the
ultrafast driver devices."

Challenges

Rovini, Spectrum Instrumentation:
"Size always matters. With more channels per unit, more power is needed and
more heat needs to be disposed. This is
in opposition to the customers' demand
for smaller instruments. Wide software
support becomes more and more important for many customers as there are
plenty of different software packages on
the market and customers like to use the
one that they know best and that can fit
best their need. Manufacturers need to offer support and examples for a wide range
of packages and need to listen carefully
to customer demands."

What key challenges are signal generator
vendors or their partners facing today?
Malatest, Per Vices: "There are challenges
associated with any new innovation, and I
believe the demand for both higher bandwidth and wider operating frequency are
the biggest contributors to signal-generator manufacturers today. Due to limitations in some performance aspects of
integrated circuit silicon, manufacturers
of SDRs (and traditional signal generators) are required to develop more sophisticated radio chains, incorporate higher
speed digital design, and offer support to
accommodate the high bandwidth both
in the digital and analog domains."
Sandler, Picotest: "GaN is at a pivotal point in history. As the market
shifts from silicon to GaN, new design,

Semancik, Marvin Test Solutions: "One of
the key challenges that many manufacturers face is not necessarily unique to
the signal-generator market and involves
designing products for long life-cycle requirements. Many MIL/aero applications
require product support cycles of 10 to 15
years and beyond, which can be challenging as components reach end of life-often prompting expensive last-time buys

Mark Elo, U.S. sales manager for Tabor
Electronics: "Many applications today for
analog signal generators are supporting
emerging mmWave technologies that are
deployed in the unlicensed band and automotive radar bands. Most of the measurements can be performed using standard equipment such as oscilloscopes. A
cost-efficient way of doing this is to use
downconverters with analog signal generators as the LO."
Margaret Grattan, signal sources product manager at Tektronix: "We're seeing
AWG customers wanting to create more
complex signals for sophisticated test
scenarios. In this instance, engineers and
researchers need the ability to accurately recreate real-world signals and cycle
through signal tests quickly. Applications
where this is becoming increasingly

8

EVALUATION ENGINEERING NOVEMBER 2019

Marvin Test Solutions' GX1110 arbitrary
waveform function generator PXI card.
Evaluation Engineering

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