Evaluation Engineering - 10

VECTOR NETWORK ANALYZERS

of the IoT market. "But it isn't nearly as
simple as 'adding a radio' to the block
diagram," Chonko said. "Along with
this are the proper test techniques and
processes to ensure success and the additional knowledge and testing required
when adding an intentional radiator for
FCC/compliance testing-when to use
a certain test for a certain problem, etc.
SIGLENT is constantly building up our
applications library to assist customers
in getting started. We consider ourselves
partners to our customers. If they are successful, we will be too."

IoT, 5G, and beyond
A variety of applications areas are emerging, including IoT and 5G but extending to materials science and medicine.
Chonko at SIGLENT commented that
while IoT and broadcast testing have
the largest growth possibilities from his
perspective, "Basic science and material
characterization are an important part
of the VNA market and represent a stable
and consistent customer group."
Campbell at Keysight drilled down on
5G. "Multiport phased-array antennas

Sponsored by

address 5G's need for faster wireless
data transmission, but they come with
unique test challenges," he said. "Modern
transmitters and receivers operate at low
power levels over wide bandwidths and
require extreme measurement precision
to characterize. Low-power measurements have little room for error, but
switch-based multiport measurement
setups degrade the network analyzer's
accuracy. Keysight's response to the
growing need for multiport test is modular multiport network analyzers like the
M980xA Series, which reduce uncertainty
with exceptional performance-no matter how many ports you use."
"Continued advances in high-speed
digital design are clearly taking on more
importance with regard to signal integrity," said Pieciak at Rohde & Schwarz.
"The proliferation of differing standards
and corresponding board layouts are necessitating new ways of probing and analyzing signals in both frequency and time
domains. The need for high-performing
multiport testing arises from steered
antenna arrays for radar systems or 5G
antenna arrays."
Pemmaiah at Copper Mountain
Technologies cited materials measurements. "Recently,
VNAs seem to be getting more popular in
medical and agricultural research," he
said. "Among the most
recent breakthroughs,
the CMT C1209 2-port
9-GHz VNA was used
to detect cancer cells
to provide a safe and

cost-effective solution for breast-cancer
screening. MammoWave from Umbria
Bioengineering Technologies (UBT) utilizes two antennas, and each is connected to
a port of the VNA.1 Screening is performed
with the patient laying in a face-down
position. The antennas rotate around the
cup, without any compression, performing
measurements approximately every four
degrees. The measurements from the VNA
are then processed through UBT's software
to detect the presence of suspected tumors
in the breast tissue."
Ashcroft at Pico Technology cited antenna matching, gigabit data-cable test,
material dielectric properties, and penetrative imaging as applications that have
grown strongly in recent years and continue to do so. "All of these proliferate to
industries that typically haven't previously owned a VNA, heard of S-parameters,
or made these measurements before," he
said. "Uncluttered ease of use and fast,
high-quality measurements are everything here. Imaging in particular is demanding of speed," such as PicoVNAs' to
5,500 full and corrected 2-port measurements per second (10,000 per second if
measuring only s11 or s21).
Sandler at Picotest said that power
integrity has emerged as an important
application today for VNAs. "PDN impedance is a vital design parameter that
must both be simulated and tested in order for most high-speed digital and other
low-voltage applications to be designed,
debugged, and validated," he said. "No
longer can the power supply be designed
apart from the PCB, decoupling, and load
circuitry. They must be designed together,
and the main way in which performance

Copper Mountain
Technologies
low-frequency base
VNA with frequencyextender modules.

EVALUATION ENGINEERING JANUARY 2020

http://www.rsleads.com/001ee-908 http://www.rsleads.com/001ee-206 http://www.rsleads.com/001ee-206

Evaluation Engineering

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Evaluation Engineering