Microwave Engineering Europe - October 2008 - (Page 41)

SYNTHETIC TEST 41 such as harmonics, compression point/output dynamic range, third order intercept (TOI), receiver noise ﬁgure (for best sensitivity), and duty cycle are also very important. Consequently, to ensure the quality and compliance of the DUT, all the parameters mentioned above need to be carefully measured, optimized and validated during development, and quickly veriﬁed during production. Additionally, since these modules are frequency agile, can be electronically steered through a programmable phase shifter, and have variable output/input power, all the characteristic parameters need to be veriﬁed under a large variety of conditions and states. All of this leads to a measurement space deﬁned as the number of measurement points in a multi-dimensional measurement volume that truly requires high-speed and high-measurement accuracy to achieve low uncertainty and allow testing to be conducted efﬁciently and economically. The test environment also has to be extremely stable in order for all measurements to exhibit good correlation, both for the same module and among all modules, since the quality of an array will depend equally on the individual quality of each T-R module. The DUT production test plan Testing performed in the engineering mode When testing in an engineering mode, not only all parameters and characteristics of the T-R module prototypes need to be tested extensively but standard performance parameters are also methodically exceeded to be able to provide both performance (how much of an out of spec condition the module must endure) and manufacturing (how much of a variance due to components and production activities) margins. In this case, tests are bound to be repeated extensively, as the necessary modiﬁcations and rework are carried out, until the required performance and manufacturing parameters can be guaranteed. Consequently, during the engineering phase, test activities are almost as intense as they are in manufacturing, but they are more focused toward repeating tests on a few modules than performing tests once for each of many modules. During this phase, many companies start deﬁning the test environment needed in production in order to avoid duplication of efforts and also to provide a seamless transition of the DUT test environment from engineering to production. Testing performed in production When testing in production, speed and accuracy are key. In order to be cost efﬁcient, the production environment requires as few test stations as possible (with a minimum number of operators), with the highest throughput possible, while maintaining the highest possible yield. In this situation, two additional factors are of great importance: • A system-level calibration that is fully consistent and traceable to recognized standards (e.g., NIST). This ensures accuracy, low uncertainty, and consistent measurement results. • Consistency between the quality of the test environment in production and the test Microwave Engineering ● October 2008 ● www.mwee.com 040-041-042-043_MWEE.indd 41 3/10/08 15:45:39 http://www.dowkey.com http://www.dowkey.com http://www.mwee.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Microwave Engineering Europe - October 2008

Microwave Engineering Europe - October 2008 Contents Comment News Cover Feature: AWR's AXIEM Software Brings 3D Planar Electromagnetic (EM) Simulation "Up Front" RFID: Augmented Reality: Beyond RFID and QR Codes for Mobile Phone Platforms Filters & Frequency Synthesis ZigBee Goes Green with Support for Smart Energy Simplify Mobile Data Applications and Services Test Enabling the State-of-the-Art in Automatic Test Equipment National Physical Laboratory Test Facility Aids Development of Next-Generation Antennas Selecting the Synthetic Test Environment for Transmit-Receive (T-R) Modules in a Phased Array Radar System Products Calendar

Microwave Engineering Europe - October 2008

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