If you disassemble an electrolytic capacitor and a supercapacitor, you might have trouble distinguishing differences between the two unless you had a practiced eye. Physically, the two can resemble each other though their electrical performance differs drastically. First a few basics. Ordinary capacitors, of course, are characterized by metal plates separated by a dielectric. In […]
Test and Measurement News
PHY conformance test tool to support UWB development efforts
A FiRa-validated ultra-wideband (UWB) PHY Conformance Test Tool (PCTT) supports the further development of an open and standardized UWB ecosystem. With expertise and experience in wireless technology verification and certification, Rohde & Schwarz is well positioned to provide a test tool to support interoperability on the UWB physical layer as specified by FiRa. Thanks to […]
Can RF shock you?
Engineers know they’ll get a poke if they touch household ac wires. But RF current typically is not felt as electric shock because the frequency is too high to depolarize nerve membranes. However, RF current can cause both internal organ damage and surface radiation burns, so care must be taken to avoid high exposure. It’s […]
Audio measurements for product development
It pays to know the fundamental parameters that quantify the performance of sound equipment. Daniel Knighten, Audio Precision Quantitative, objective audio measurements have a role to play not just during design validation and as a manufacturing quality control tool, but during all stages of product development . They even come in handy during the earliest […]
Whatever happened to parallel interfaces?
Back in the early days of desktop personal computers, parallel interfaces were the norm rather than the exception. The parallel moniker refers to the way the data is sent; parallel ports send multiple bits of data simultaneously, as opposed to serial communication where bits pass one-at-a-time typically over a single connection. The rationale for parallel […]
Is there such a thing as a catenary antenna?
A conic section is formed by the intersection of a plane that cuts though a cone, usually with the circle at the top and the hyperbola at the bottom. Between them lie the ellipse and the parabola. The parabola has distinctive properties when rotated in space to make a concave surface. The parabola can be […]
Design-to-test data analytics software speeds development tasks
The new DataStudio design-to-test data analytics solution provides the foundation for a modern, secure, scalable engineering data infrastructure and applications, accelerating the pace of innovation for wireless, semiconductor, and electronics innovators. Consistent with the need to fast-track product development, DataStudio bridges critical data across the semiconductor design and test workflow. DataStudio Specification Compliance Manager (SCM), […]
The up side of under sampling
A digital signal can be derived from the original time-varying, continuous analog signal by creating a sampled sequence of quantized values. It is intuitively evident that the fidelity and resolution of this quantized signal is based upon the number of samples taken per unit of time. Harry Nyquist published an early version, later further formalized […]
Measuring and using static electricity
Many moons ago, a future member of our editorial staff was playing with his very first multimeter. He was a farm kid. One of his first experiments was to put the negative lead of the meter on a ground rod and the positive lead on one of the metal bands used to reinforce the interlocking […]
Coaxial cable myths and misunderstandings
In this age of misinformation, you can add coaxial cable to the list of items for which it is easy to get steered wrong based on internet searches. Much of the bogus online commentary about coax relates to cable loss, cable impedance, and standing waves. Here are a few basics that may help sort the […]
