SELECT YOUR TESTING NEEDS
ZTEC Instruments and industry demands:
RFIC Testing Background
The rapidly-increasing prevalence of wireless technology drives the need for new test capabilities 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 testing involving distortion or noise figure measurements requires relatively simple RF test equipment. For RFIC devices capable of modern digital communication protocols such as WLAN, 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). 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 or speed and coverage while minimizing test equipment capital expense.
Market Forces Change Testing Landscape
Traditionally benchtop and "Big Iron ATE" equipment have been used from design to characterization and then on to high volume production. Price sensitivity and slow to market enabling technology has driven IDM's and OSAT's to only use "Big Iron ATE" under extreme conditions. Today's benchtop equipment has many of those same challenges. The designer may need all the capability of a high-end instrument but when outfitting multiple test benches or low volume production they become cost prohibitive while only a small fraction of their capability is being used.
The pricing, capability, and ease of use forces drove the invention of one-box testers. These are essentially "golden radios" that use 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.
One-box tester's capital pricing was a very attractive however Return On Asset became a looming concern. As new standards become firm, IEE 802.11ac and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) are both good examples, the finite capability of one-box testers becomes an issue. Their technology is fixed in time and does not allow for growth. Hence the emergence of modular instruments in the RFIC test market.
Synthetic Instrumentation using PXI
Modular instrumentation or Synthetic Instrumentation (SI) is a term used for flexible, software-reconfigurable instrumentation built of generic hardware modules. The PXI or PXIe modular architectures are ideally suited for SI configurations. For RFIC characterization, SI offers the flexibility and capabilities required for modulated signal analysis. At the same time, SI can maintain a reasonable price point by optimizing functionality for RFIC device testing. ZTEC Instruments' ZT8201 RFIC Test Set is an example of an SI that optimizes the size, speed, price point, and functionality for RFIC device testing and characterization.
The ZT8201 RFIC Test Set combines the easy-to-use, protocol-specific processing of a one-box tester with the modularity, programmability and flexibility of a software-defined SI. This functionality gives engineers a flexible solution to meet the demands of emerging standards like 802.11ac.
