Accelerate Your RF/Wireless Design with Tektronix Solutions

Article By : Tektronix

Tektronix delivers the expertise, as well as the signal generation and analysis capabilities required to overcome the most challenging RF, wireless and microwave design challenges with total confidence...

With the rapid evolution of wireless technologies and the complexity of new designs, you need a partner who understands the intricacies of RF testing. Tektronix delivers the expertise, as well as the signal generation and analysis capabilities required to overcome the most challenging RF, wireless and microwave design challenges with total confidence. We are enabling engineers to do more every day – simply and easily.

Download our tutorials to learn more about Tektronix’s RF/Wireless Debug Solutions

IoT Solution Wi-Fi Solution Bluetooth Solution RF Design

Do More, Save More with Tektronix 3 Series MDO during RF/Wireless Debug

In a typical embedded system integrated with RF/Wireless module, you got analog, digital, baseband, and RF signals. To see and measure them in both time and frequency domains you need to have an oscilloscope and a spectrum analyzer. Oscilloscope is used to range from DC to a few hundred MHz, even up to GHz, for viewing and measuring analog, digital and baseband signals; while Spectrum Analyzer is used to range from 9 KHz to a few GHz for viewing and measuring RF signals. In debugging your RF/Wireless design, you need both, and each may cost you US$10,000 or more.

Some oscilloscopes vendors provide a FFT function to transform time-domain waveforms into frequency domain spectrums. However, there are many shortcomings in using such a FFT, including it won’t change the oscilloscope’s input frequency, i.e. if an oscilloscope is of 500MHz Bandwidth, if you input a 500 MHz RF signal, it will be attenuated by 3dB already before any FFT is done. On top of that, the frequency resolution (i.e. RBW) and Span of the spectrum all depend on the oscilloscope’s time-domain settings like record length and sampling rate, making the FFT usage very counter-intuitive and cumbersome to obtain a desirable spectrum.

Figure 1: Tektronix 3 Series MDO (Mixed Domain Oscilloscopes) have a built-in Spectrum Analyzer with dedicated RF

Regarding this, Tektronix 3 Series MDO (Mixed Domain Oscilloscopes) have a built-in Spectrum Analyzer with dedicated RF input that is independent from the oscilloscope’s analog inputs. By doing so, you can enjoy a real Spectrum Analyzer with independent controls in RBW, Span, Center Frequency and Markers plus a real Spectrum Analyzer’s DANL, Phase Noise performance; and at the same time and in the same instrument, you can enjoy a full function mixed signal oscilloscope too. Tektronix 3 Series MDO is a 6-in-1 instrument that integrates oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzer, logic analyzer, protocol analyzer, digital multimeter, frequency counter in one instrument, able to help you to do more with less efforts and spending.

Learn more how 3 Series MDO can help you do more and save more

Troubleshoot Your Internet of Things, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Designs Faster

To troubleshoot effectively causes of failures and excessive EMI emissions in a wireless digital design relies on the capability to get insights on how events happened in the digital circuitry were interfering with and correlating to the events happened in the RF circuitry. An oscilloscope with time-correlated RF measurements capabilities like the Tektronix 4, 5 or 6 Series MSO with the unprecedented “Spectrum View” function can help engineers zero-in faster on anomalies and interference sources that caused system and EMI Compliance failures. Find out more how Spectrum View can help you debug your Wireless Designs faster.

Get a copy of the following application notes:

EMI Troubleshooting with the Latest-Generation Oscilloscopes

Spectrum View: A New Approach to Frequency Domain Analysis on Oscilloscopes

Figure 2: We are triggering on the SPI bus command that tells the VCO what frequency to tune to. In this case, it’s 2.4 GHz. Using Spectrum Time, we were able to scroll through the acquisition and see when the RF output stabilized at 2.4 GHz. Then, using cursors, we can measure from the trigger event to Spectrum Time’s location and see that it took 304 μs for the output to achieve the desired frequency.

Don’t Let EMI/EMC Compliance Certification Slow You Down

Figure 3: EMI/EMC pre-compliance testing with RSA500 Series Real Time Spectrum Analyzers

Did you know that 50% of projects fail EMI/EMC testing the first time? Intertek Testing Services reports that roughly half of products fail the initial EMC test due to a failure to apply EMC principles, lack of EMC/EMI knowledge, incorrect applications of EMC regulations, unpredicted interactions among circuit elements, or incorporation of non-compliant modules or subassemblies into the final product.

Performing pre-compliance testing greatly improves the probability of a successful first pass of full EMI compliance testing, saving you time and thousands of dollars. Companies designing products for medical, automotive, military and even multimedia applications, can benefit from investing in a pre-compliance test setup. Download our whitepaper on how to add EMC Pre-Compliance testing capabilities into your product development process that can accelerate your product development process and reducing project costs and risks.

Learn more about speeding up your EMC Pre-Compliance

Virtual Event - PowerUP Asia 2024 is coming (May 21-23, 2024)

Power Semiconductor Innovations Toward Green Goals, Decarbonization and Sustainability

Day 1: GaN and SiC Semiconductors

Day 2: Power Semiconductors in Low- and High-Power Applications

Day 3: Power Semiconductor Packaging Technologies and Renewable Energy

Register to watch 30+ conference speeches and visit booths, download technical whitepapers.

Leave a comment