Test & Measurement

Broadband RF amplifiers in the R&S BBA300 family span a wide frequency range between 380MHz to 6GHz continuously within a single amplifier. Rohde & Schwarz claimed that they are the widest band, most flexible broadband RF amplifiers available.

The BBA300 family provides a single amplifier that eliminates the need to switch instruments or bands during a test, making automotive and wide band wireless communication radios testing easier, said Rohde & Schwarz. 

The continuous wide frequency range is believed to be an industry first. It addresses the requirements of EMC test centres, RF component designers and product design and validation. 

Two models are initially available: the BBA300-DE operates from 1.0 to 6.0GHz and the BBA300-CDE has a capability of 380MHz to 6.0GHz. 

The BBA300 family’s design and manufacture provide linearity and noise power density as low as -110dBm/Hz. It is also claimed to ensure excellent harmonic performance (down to -25dBc). Intelligent protection features ensure high availability, even in the event of component failure. Self-protection is built-in to ensure the instruments are robust against RF mismatch up to VSWR of 6:1. 

The BBA300 models have smart settings and activation functions which adapt instruments’ settings and behaviour according to the application. The amplifier design offers the ability to realise a broad array of customer system set ups for flexible, scalable working, with upgradable frequency and power. 

The R&S BBA300-DE and R&S BBA300-CDE models are available now from Rohde & Schwarz and selected distribution partners.

The Rohde & Schwarz technology group provides products for test and measurement, technology systems, networks and cybersecurity. The group was founded more than 85 years ago and is headquartered in Munich, Germany.

http://www.rohde-schwarz.com 

Customers can transition to PCIe 6.0 PAM4 signalling, just weeks after the PCI-SIG (Special Interest Group) released PCI Express (PCIe) 6.0 Base specifications and validation requirements, said Tektronix at the release of the PCIe 6.0 Base transmitter test for oscilloscopes.

PCIe 6.0 is a scalable standard for data-intensive markets such as data centre, artificial intelligence / machine learning (AI / ML) and high performance computing (HPC). It transitions to PAM4 signalling and new error correcting techniques. The Tektronix test therefore includes PCIe 6.0 measurement-specific software, enhanced PAM4 DSP capabilities and noise compensation on the oscilloscope. The Tektronix test is further enhanced by the analysis tools for SNDR and uncorrelated jitter measurements which are both mandated requirements for the PCIe 6.0 standard.

The PCIe 6.0 standard transmitter validation for high performance and data-intensive markets is available worldwide for use with DPO70000SX ATI Performance Oscilloscopes. 

Tektronix’s customer, silicon IP provider, Alphawave collaborated with Tektronix for early validation of PCIe 6.0 physical layer designs. “Tektronix was deeply involved in defining the PCIe 64 GT/s measurement methodologies, which enabled our engineers to increase their confidence in meeting this challenging new standard prior to release,” said Clint Walker, vice president of marketing at Alphawave.  

Tektronix’s Swapnil Mane, marketing director of wired solutions, agreed: “Our PCIe 6.0 standard test and debug solution easily integrates into the engineers’ workflow for test and debug. With the complexity of PAM4 signalling, our analysis tools make it easier to test their design and ensure it meets the new 6.0 standard requirement with a high degree of confidence”.

The test includes PCIe 6.0 (64 GT/s) standard automated base transmitter running on Tektronix DPO70000SX real time oscilloscopes with 50GHz and above bandwidth. It has enhanced PAM4 DSP capabilities with the Tektronix PAMJET application and support for measurements developed for the PCI Express 6.0 standard including SNDR, RLM, uncorrelated jitter, and pulse width jitter. In addition, instrumentation noise compensation techniques are tailored to individual measurements to achieve the most accurate results, said Tektronix.

http://www.tek.com 

High speed 800G test options from Keysight Technologies have been expanded to include 400G and 800G validation to improve power efficiency in data centres.

The initial 800G test products enable users to verify the performance of a range of optical transceiver modules and components, including vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), photodiodes, modulator drivers, transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs) and physical layer (PHY) chips.

The extended portfolio supports 400G and 800G design validation, in accordance with standards defined by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), across the entire product lifecycle, from early research and development to manufacturing.

As hyperscale data centres adopt 800G as a connectivity technology, there has been an accompanying rise in the use of cloud-native, 5G, AI and IoT applications as well as an increased in data-hungry applications such as video conferencing, streaming and digital entertainment. The latest addition to Keysight’s portfolio of 800G test equipment offer design and validation to support multi-mode interfaces, which are critical for an energy-efficient data centre infrastructure, explained the company. The 800G multi-mode test equipment supports data interconnect speeds of up to 100Gigabits per second.

Test capabilities include multi-mode component characterisation using the N4373E lightwave component analyser, conformance and interoperability validation using N1077B 64Gbaud multi-mode optical and electrical clock recovery options and transceiver module performance evaluation using Keysight’s A400GE-QDD and G800GE layer 1 multi-port test.

Keysight Technologies delivers advanced design and validation products to help accelerate innovation, with software-driven insights and analytics to help bring products to market faster across the development lifecycle, in design simulation, prototype validation, automated software testing, manufacturing analysis, and network performance optimisation and visibility in enterprise, service provider and cloud environments. Customers operate in communications and industrial ecosystems, aerospace and defence, automotive, energy, semiconductor and general electronics markets. 

http://www.keysight.com