Product category:
Stand-Alone Instruments
News Release from: Tektronix | Subject: RSA3408A
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 09 December 2004
Real-time spectrum analysis comes of age
The Tektronix RSA3408A is a new high performance DC to 8GHz real-time spectrum analyser providing 36MHz wide real-time triggering and capture capabilities.
The Tektronix RSA3408A is a new high performance DC to 8GHz real-time spectrum analyser providing 36MHz wide real-time triggering and capture capabilities, and enhanced resolution yielding a 2000-fold improvement in the analysis of power and frequency changes over time With the RSA3408A, engineers will be able to view RF signal instabilities and transients that they never knew existed
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 13 Dec 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Market technology trends including the propagation of RF devices in consumer and industrial applications, such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags for inventory control, keyless entry and satellite radio systems for cars, wireless game controllers, GPS receivers and wireless local area networks are resulting in RF signals that are becoming increasingly complex and transient in nature, generating problems that are harder than ever to find and identify.
More than ever, RF signals carry complex modulation and change from one instant to the next, hopping frequencies, spiking briefly and then disappearing.
These transient and time varying transmission techniques help RF devices avoid interference, maximise peak power and, often, evade detection.
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"Wireless technology is becoming pervasive, appearing in a rapidly increasing number of computing and consumer products in addition to communication devices", said Craig Overhage, Vice President, Instrument Business Unit, Tektronix.
"Most of these wireless applications employ some form of time-varying RF signals, such as frequency-hopping in Bluetooth, or momentary communication links in RFID".
"This is what has led Tektronix to establish real-time spectrum analysis as a core element of our product strategy".
"The new RSA3408A demonstrates the maturing capabilities of real-time spectrum analysis and points to the day when this line of instruments will be a necessity for many customers".
Many complex problems are illuminated for the first time by time correlating signal behaviour in the frequency, time, and modulation domains.
Tools that are able to seamlessly capture transient events and provide time-correlated, multidomain displays of the signal will dramatically reduce the time engineers spend troubleshooting problems.
Conventional spectrum analysers are often inadequate to meet many of the new demands.
These traditional instruments often miss what a real-time spectrum analyser such as the RSA3408A can see.
"The RSA3408A real-time spectrum analyser dramatically improves customers' ability to troubleshoot RF systems by providing insights into problems with their design", said Rick King, Vice President, Real-Time Spectrum Analyser Product Line, Tektronix.
"Customers will be able to capitalise on the capabilities provided by the RSA3408A in order to facilitate and expedite design characterisation, system integration and validation to industry standards certification for emerging technologies used in a variety of devices from simple RFID tags to complex combo WLAN/cellular systems".
"In addition, the new RSA3408A is the only instrument available with the ability to fully identify, capture and analyse individual pulses amidst a train of thousands, providing new insight for designers of remote sensing and location aware devices and systems".
"The net effect will be to reduce time to market and provide customers with higher confidence in the quality of the product they eventually deliver".
With the RSA3408A, customers will be able to trigger on RF anomalies that can't be detected by other instruments, capture a truly seamless record of spans up to 36MHz over a long period of time, and analyse time-correlated multiple-domain views of their signals.
This seamless record of RF signal behaviour over time provides the ability to fully analyse the RF signal simultaneously in the time, frequency and modulation domains The RSA3408A is the only analyser that can offer a 36MHz bandwidth frequency mask trigger (FMT), finding interfering and transient signals that no other instrument can, ensuring that potential systems instabilities are eliminated from the design before they can cause a problem.
By displaying a seamless record of frequency and power changes over time, the RSA3408A can solve many transient problems ranging from modulation switching on software-defined radio systems to identification of rogue pulses in radar transmission to dynamic modulation changes during a WLAN transmission. Request a free brochure from Tektronix ...
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