News briefs

-- Test & Measurement World, 8/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

Rohde & Schwarz enters the time domain LabView gets a boost with 2010 release Waveforms trigger on time Calibrate your best temperature probes Calendar

Rohde & Schwarz enters the time domain

The Rohde & Schwarz test-and-measurement division is entering the time-domain-analysis business with families of oscilloscopes that offer bandwidths to 2 GHz. Roland Steffen, head of the firm's test-and-measurement division, said the new offerings will complement the under-500-MHz offerings from the Hameg subsidiary, which R&S acquired five years ago. He said Hameg will continue to supply instruments costing roughly 4000 euro and less through distributors, while R&S will serve the 500-MHz and up, 4000-euro-and-up market through its direct sales force.

Josef Wolf, head of the spectrum and network analyzers, EMC tests, and oscilloscopes subdivision, said the scope-development effort focused on high-level integration of analog, mixed-signal, and digital subsystems. A key goal, he said, was a low-noise analog front-end achieved through the use of a single-core SiGe 10-GHz ADC with ENOB better than seven. A 90-nm ASIC with 15 million gates provides hardware implementation of digital-signal-processing functions, enabling the analysis of 1 million waveforms per second.

The top-of-the-line R&S RTO models are available in two- and four-channel versions with bandwidths of 1 and 2 GHz. Sampling rate is 10 Gsamples/s. The instruments support a Windows-driven touch-screen user interface. The R&S RTM models offer 500-MHz bandwidth and 5-Gsamples/s sampling. They forgo the touch-screen interface but boot within 7 s to help provide fast measurement results. RTM instruments start at 5000 euro; RTO instruments start at 12,000 euro. www.rohde-schwarz.com.

LabView gets a boost with 2010 release

National Instruments has unveiled LabView 2010, the latest version of its graphical programming software. The company says that with a rewritten complier, the new version offers an overall 20% speed improvement over previous versions, and it also adds features that will help users shorten development time.

For example, the new packed project libraries help developers distribute code to users. Developers can encapsulate portions of compiled LabView code in a packed library, which contains a single file with a .lvlibp extension. The libraries can shorten development time for others looking to incorporate that code into larger projects. Opening a packed library lets users see, but not edit, the LabView code it contains.

Developers and test engineers who use instrument drivers have long had a way to find drivers at www.ni.com, but LabView 2010 lets you search for and install NI-certified drivers from within LabView. The Instrument Driver Finder will connect a computer with Internet access directly to the company's Website to simplify the process.

LabView 2010 also improves development time by reducing the number of clicks needed to gain access to a function. Other new features simplify the process of configuring a system. For example, LabView 2010 lets users configure LabView Realtime PXI systems through a browser rather than through NI's Measurement and Automation Explorer. Prices start at $1249. www.ni.com/labview.

Waveforms trigger on time The WaveXciter arbitrary waveform generators from Tabor Electronics let you generate standard, modulated, and arbitrary waveforms with sample rates up to 2.1 Gsamples/s with 12-bit amplitude resolution. The WaveXciter series consists of two models—the single-channel WX2181 and the dual-channel WX2182—both of which feature a trigger that lets you initiate a waveform based on an incoming pulse's width. That is, the instruments can trigger on pulses longer than a programmed width, shorter than a programmed width, or between two widths. The instruments can store waveforms up to 16 Msamples long (32 Msamples optional). A sequence table with up to 16,000 steps lets you call waveform segments. Each step can initiate a waveform from an external trigger or under software control, and each waveform segment can run up to 1 million times. Standard waveforms include sine; square; triangle with modulation including AM, FM, FSK, PSK, nQAM, and nPSK; and sweep. Both instruments in the WaveXciter series provide communications through USB, Ethernet (LXI Class C), and GPIB ports. Software support includes ArbConnection software for creating waveforms and drivers for C, C++, LabView, and Matlab. Base price: $32,000. Tabor Electronics, www.taborelec.com.

Calibrate your best temperature probes Calibration labs use a hierarchy of temperature probes, starting with SPRTs (standard platinum resistance thermometers) that then become reference probes for other probes. The 1594A and 1595A Super-Thermometers from Fluke can use an SPRT or a reference resistor to calibrate SPRTs, PRTs (also called RTDs), and thermistors. Typical accuracy is 0.2 ppm (0.05 mK) for the 1595A and 0.8 ppm (0.2 mK) for the 1594A. Both thermometers let you compare an unknown probe against either an external SPRT (and external reference resistor) or an internal reference resistor (1 Ω, 10 Ω, 25 Ω, 100 Ω, or 10 kΩ). You can get a direct comparison or you can get a ratio of the reference resistor to the unknown probe. A ratio self-calibration lets you check the thermometer's measurement circuits. When calibrating SPRTs or PRTs, you can get test results in ohms or in temperature units. The 1594A and 1595A let you save test results to a USB thumb drive or directly to a PC through the instrument's Ethernet, RS-232, USB, or GPIB ports. You can also use the ports to control the instrument for automated tests. Prices: 1594A—$20,195; 1595A—$27,195. Fluke, www.fluke.com.

 

Calendar Autotestcon, September 13–16, Orlando, FL. IEEE, www.autotestcon.com. EOS/ESD Symposium, October 3–8, Reno, NV. Electrostatic Discharge Association, www.esda.org. International Test Conference, November 2–4, Austin, TX. IEEE, www.itctestweek.org. Electronica, November 9–12, Munich, Germany. Messe München, www.electronica.de. To learn about other conferences, courses, and calls for papers, visit www.tmworld.com/events.