Digital Radio Frequency V4 Test Solution

21 March 2011 – Agilent Technologies announced the industry’s first digital radio frequency (DigRF) V4 test solution with dual-capture capability. This software enhancement gives engineers the ability to simultaneously apply a stimulus to devices under test and analyse the results with a single instrument, the Agilent N5343A DigRF V4 exerciser.

The new exerciser allows developers of radio-frequency integrated circuits (RF-ICs) and baseband integrated circuits (BB-ICs) as well as integrators of wireless handsets to characterise their devices using fewer probes. This capability enables faster testing and accelerated time to market.

The DigRF V4 standard, driven by the Mobile Industry Processor Interface Alliance, describes a high-speed digital serial bus used between mobile baseband and RF chips. DigRF V4 is a key enabling technology for LTE and WiMAX™ devices.

Agilent’s N5343A DigRF V3/V4 exerciser offers new insights that reach from individual digital bits to IQ-modulated RF signals. The N5343A allows engineers to work in the domain (digital or RF) and abstraction level (physical or protocol layer) of their choice to quickly characterise RF-ICs and rapidly solve cross-domain integration problems.

Agilent’s dual-capture innovation helps DigRF developers save time, money and bench space. Previously, performing BB-IC and RF-IC emulation required an analyser and exerciser to monitor transmit and receive packets. Dual capture eliminates the need for an analyser for this application, which reduces equipment costs and frees up bench space. In addition, dual capture enables up to 512 Mb generate memory, up to 512 Mb capture memory or a programmable option to distribute 512 Mb capture memory within the stated ranges. Designers save time and money because they no longer need half the probing lanes previously required. With fewer physical connections, designers spend less time debugging connections.

The Agilent N5345A and N5346A active probing solutions with ultralow capacitive loading (less than 0.15 pF) and high sensitivity provide system insight with minimum disturbance at the gigabit speeds used in DigRF V4 testing. Design engineers can choose between the N5345A mid-bus probe with soft touch technology for fast probing on prototype boards and N5346A flying leads probing solutions, which enable effortless monitoring of DigRF V4 links in space-constrained designs.