Agilent offers radio frequency test package

An Agilent Technologies Europe product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Oct 3, 2008

Agilent Technologies has developed a Digital Radio Frequency (DigRF) V4 cross-domain test package.

The test package is designed to enable comprehensive stimulus and analysis for developers of radio frequency integrated circuits (RF-IC) and baseband ICs (BB-IC) as well as integrators of wireless handsets.

DigRF V4, driven by the MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) Alliance, is a high-speed digital serial bus between mobile baseband and RF chips that is a key enabling technology for LTE and Wimax.

Cross-domain tests, such as DigRF V4, offer new insights that reach from individual digital bits all the way through to IQ-modulated RF signals.

Agilent's test solution allows engineers to work in the domain (digital or RF) and abstraction level (physical or protocol layers) of their choice to quickly characterise RF-ICs and rapidly solve cross-domain integration problems.

The Agilent digital wireless test package integrates DigRF V4 stimulus and protocol analysis tools into Agilent's portfolio of digital, RF and wireless instruments.

The Agilent RDX (Radio Digital Cross-Domain) tester consists of two new modules, the Agilent N5343A exerciser module and the N5344A analysis module, which are housed in small Agilent N2X mainframes.

The modular structure is built to accommodate future MIMO designs.

The Agilent E5345A and E5346A active probing solutions with ultra-low capacitive loading (less than 0.15pF) and high sensitivity provide system insight with minimum disturbance at the gigabit speeds used in DigRF V4 testing.

Design engineers can choose between Agilent's N5345A Midbus Probe with Soft Touch technology for fast probing on prototype boards, and B5346A flying leads probing solutions, which enable monitoring of DigRF V4 links in space-constrained designs.

The test software environment includes protocol generation and analysis, and interoperates with Agilent Signal Studio software and 89600 vector signal analysis software.

RF engineers can use familiar vector signal generation and analysis software, which supports the DigRF exerciser and analysis modules, as well as signal analysers and signal sources.