Rick Nelson

Instrument makers target convergence
January 27, 2006

"Convergence" was a key theme at the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society's MTT Wireless Week 2006, held in San Diego January 16-20, and test-equipment makers were on hand to demonstrate they are up to meeting the challenges posed by convergence. The result are capable, easy-to-use RF instruments that will help even newcomers to the RF and microwave field make sure the products they are designing meet consumers' wants and needs while complying with relevant wireless-communications standards. Chief Editor Rick Nelson comments.

Fawzi Behmann, director of strategic marketing at Freescale Semiconductor, set the stage for the show's focus on convergence in his address to a January 16 press conference. Consumers, he suggested, will be demanding a convergence of ease of use, reliability, and security within devices that provide a convergence of voice, data, and audio and video functionality.

The convergence of capabilities within consumer products is driving other convergences within the design, production, and field-service lifecycle of those products. At the design stage, each engineer increasingly needs to acquire and apply logic, mixed-signal, and RF expertise. The resulting products are increasingly produced using ever more highly integrated semiconductor devices that embed RF as well as mixed-signal and base-band logic circuitry. And in the field, the presence of ever more standards is driving the need for flexible, portable test equipment. Fortunately, instrument makers at the show addressed all these areas.

For example, the convergence of RF and mixed-signal circuitry within single products is one factor that prompted Keithley Instruments to launch a new line-up of RF instruments: a signal generator, a signal analyzer, and an RF power meter. Walter Strickler, Keithley director of marketing for wireless/RF business, cited ease of use as a key feature that will make the instruments attractive to engineers facing RF measurement challenges for the first time.

For its part, Agilent Technologies addressed the convergence of RF, IF, and data-conversion functionality within a single semiconductor device. Agilent application specialist Mark Lombardi explained that with such levels of integration, access to analog I/Q signals is disappearing, although the need to make I/Q measurements is not. Agilent's solution? Porting its 89600 Series VSA (vector signal analysis) software to its line-up of logic analyzers, which engineers can then use to monitor the flow of digital I/Q data across the buses connecting RF and base-band chips.

And finally, Anritsu provided an example of meeting the field-service challenges of convergence. The company demonstrated an HSDPA measurement option its UMTS Master MT8220A handheld analyzer. When equipped with the HSDPA option, the instrument can make all measurements listed in the 3GPP spec for HSDPA base-station performance testing.

It's ironic that "convergence" leads to divergence in communications standards, test requirements, and engineering skill sets necessary to implement marketable products. It's encouraging that test-equipment vendors appear to be up to the challenges.

Posted by Rick Nelson on January 27, 2006 | Comments (0)