Modular instruments ensure measurement integrity and code compatibility across form factor and product lifecycle
As of today, this question spans across three form factors: benchtop, modular and handheld. Some related questions are also very often asked: What is the future of the T&M industry? Will everything go modular, or will benchtop instruments remain largely dominant as they are today? Contrary to what some T&M companies may tell you, “one size fits all” is a limiting value proposition.
Why? The answer lives inside your product lifecycle: test needs evolve from unbounded in R&D to just enough in manufacturing. Different situations benefit from best-fit platforms—hardware and software—that provide meaningful choices. There is no simple rule for choosing the best form factor to answer all customer situations. Each test system has its own requirements.
Keysight Technologies has taken the approach of providing a range of solutions across benchtop, modular, and handheld to meet the needs of all end-users, no matter what part of the product lifecycle you are in. All of these form factors utilize the same measurement science, resulting in measurement integrity across multiple platforms.
Your team can benefit from this approach by gaining confidence across the lifecycle, because Keysight’s ongoing investment in measurement science ensures fully specified performance. This enhances your ability to optimize test in ways the support your technical and business objectives. The whole organization benefits: It becomes more efficient when successive groups see consistent measurement results throughout the lifecycle, from early R&D to manufacturing. The foundation of this is Keysight’s commitment to measurement integrity.
There are two new products that have been recently introduced to enhance Keysight Technologies’ modular portfolio. Both leverage the measurement science from Keysight’s existing benchtop portfolio to ensure measurement integrity and code compatibility across form factor and product lifecycle.
The first new modular series that has been introduced are one-slot PXI vector network analyzers that cover 300 kHz up to 26.5 GHz. The new M9370A series offer the best PXI VNA performance on key specifications such as speed, trace noise, stability and dynamic range. This enables the PXI VNAs to perform fast, accurate measurements and reduce the cost-of-test by enabling simultaneous characterization of many devices – two-port or multi-port – using a single PXI chassis.
As devices become increasingly complex, there is a need to easily characterize a full set of S-parameters on a large number of ports—8, 16, 24, or more. On the production line or in a wafer fab, there is a growing need to test multiple devices or multiple wafer sites at a single test station. Examples include cell phone handsets, military radios and increasingly dense silicon wafers. In these situations, one of the key needs is reducing the overall size of the test solution. When space is at a premium, full two-port VNA capability with S-parameters can be added to an existing system that has just one open slot. To address applications such as high-volume device testing and highly complex on-wafer testing, a single chassis can be loaded with up to sixteen PXI VNA modules for use as either multiple two-port VNAs, a single 32-port VNA, or any combination in between (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Adding two-port PXI VNA modules to an existing test station enables powerful device characterization without expanding system height or footprint.
The PXI VNA uses the measurement science and calibration technology from the popular Keysight PNA vector network analyzers. The PXI models also provide a graphical user interface that shares the familiar look-and-feel of the PNA family and eases the transition to PXI.
The second new introduction is industry’s first signal analyzer to provide swept and FFT-based capabilities in the PXI form factor. The Keysight M9290A CXA-m PXIe signal analyzer delivers fully specified performance up to 26.5 GHz and provides best-in-class specifications in key areas such as sensitivity and dynamic range.
The CXA-m supports testing of components, boards and systems in a variety of applications, including military maintenance operations at the intermediate and depot levels. Example devices-under-test include radios such as those used in the military, public safety, avionics, radar, electronic warfare and satellites. The rich set of built-in measurement capabilities, including swept and FFT modes in the same instrument, accelerates tasks such as the identification of spurious signals and harmonics.
The CXA-m also reduces time and effort in system deployment. For example, it ensures seamless transitions between R&D, manufacturing and maintenance by providing 100-percent compatibility with code written for Keysight’s X-Series signal analyzers and ESA spectrum analyzers. Ready-to-use drivers and SCPI commands simplify evaluation and programming.
To help ease the transition from benchtop to modular, the CXA-m has the same user interface as the X-Series signal analyzers. In addition, code developed on a benchtop MXA or PXA signal analyzer in R&D or design verification can be used with a PXI-based system that includes the CXA-m, and the code typically runs without modifications (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Power suite CXA screenshot.
With both of these new products, Keysight continues our commitment to bring you the best measurement science and integrity, across a range of form factors. By offering both benchtop and modular instruments, Keysight is proposing a consultative approach with its customers to find the best solution to meet their individual needs. By ensuring consistent answers across diverse platforms, we put you in the strongest position to first focus on what’s needed and then optimize how to get there.
The author, Allison Douglas holds the position of Market Development Manager at Keysight EMEA.
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