PXI Newsletter

Newsletter: RFIC Testing Using PXI Synthetic Instrumentation			10/18/2011
IN THIS ISSUE
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From Bob Helsel, Executive Director of PXISA:

Welcome to the October edition of the PXI Newsletter. Our intent is to educate and inform you about how the PXI standard is being used in modular test systems for a wide variety of industries.

The Breadth of New PXI Products
The double-digit growth of PXI products, even during an economic downturn, has been a positive sign in the T&M industry. The following are examples of the breadth of recently released products (not an exhaustive list):

Agilent M9036A PXIe Embedded Controller
Agilent M9216A PXI 32-channel High Voltage Data Acquisition
Geotest GX3700e & GX3700 High Performance FPGA Modules
GOEPEL electronic PXI5396-DT/x JTAG Digital I/O Modules
MAC Panel SCOUT Solution for FlexRIO
National Instruments PXIe-5665 14 GHz VSA
National Instruments PXIe-6556 200 MHz Digital Waveform
Generator/Analyzer with PPMU
National Instruments PXIe-4141 4 Channel SMU with SourceAdapt™
OpenATE PXI QSPI Semiconductor Test Instrument
Pickering 40-570 and 40-571 PXI Multiplexers
Pickering PXI 40-197 and 40-198 Fault Insertion (FI) modules
Teradyne High Speed Subsystem (HSSub)
VPC i2 Micro iCon
ZTEC Instruments ZT8651 PXI/PXIe 6 GHz VSA

Our main article this month, RFIC Testing Using PXI Synthetic Instrumentation, shows how PXI synthetic instrumentation can address the fast testing that is now necessary for Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) devices. In the New PXI Products section, we are showcasing PXI products recently released by members of the PXI Systems Alliance.

Thanks to Geotest – Marvin Test Systems, our sponsor for this month's issue.

Visit http://www.pxisa.org for more information.

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Main Article

RFIC Testing Using PXI Synthetic Instrumentation

By
C. D. Ziomek, President
M. T. Hunter, CTO
ZTEC Instruments

RFIC Testing Background

Reducing the cost of test through faster test times is the holy grail of Automated Test Equipment (ATE). With the increasing prevalence of wireless devices, fast testing is now necessary for Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) devices. Historically, RF testing and characterization has been accomplished using un-modulated single-frequency RF signals. Single-frequency RF tests, involving spectral masks or noise figure measurements, is time consuming but requires relatively simple RF test equipment.

For RFIC devices capable of modern communication protocols such as Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and LTE, test requirements extend beyond single frequency testing. There is much published research on achieving rapid and extensive test coverage using comprehensive measurements such as error vector magnitude (EVM) [1]. In order to perform high-coverage measurements, modulated-signal testing replaces single-frequency testing. Unfortunately, adding the necessary instantaneous bandwidths (IBW) and modulation capabilities to general-purpose test equipment can be cost prohibitive. The underlying need is the ability to optimize tests for speed and coverage while minimizing test equipment capital expense.
This need has led to the emergence of one-box testers, which are essentially “golden radios” using a well characterized RFIC device similar to the device under test (DUT). One-box testers offer the ability to test RFIC devices in a limited and known fashion. Whereas this may be adequate for production test of a particular device, testing of devices employing a new protocol or comprehensive device characterization requires much more flexible RF instrumentation.