Pico Technology, a manufacturer of USB oscilloscopes, has added 10Base-T1S protocol analysis to software that operates the company’s line of USB oscilloscopes. That brings to 40 the number of serial protocols that the company supports. PicoScope 7 software is a free download. 10Base-T1S is a two-wire Ethernet standard that specifies a physical layer for automotive […]
Communication Test
How can I quantify a device’s nonlinearity? part 1
You can specify nonlinearity in parts per million or, especially for RF components, in terms of the 1-dB compression point or third-order intercept point.
What is intermodulation, and is it good or bad? part 4
Nonlinearities in active circuits and passive components can add harmonic and nonharmonic distortion. This series has investigated intermodulation, the process by which the application of two frequencies to a nonlinear system results in the system generating frequencies that equal the sum and difference of the input frequencies. In Part 1 and Part 2, we looked […]
What is intermodulation, and is it good or bad? part 3
Excel’s charting function adds nonharmonic frequency components to a cosine wave. In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we looked at intermodulation — what it is and how to apply it to frequency-translation tasks. We concluded Part 2 with an image like Figure 1. We had begun with a 1,200-kHz carrier with two […]
OFC 2024: Test equipment
Before those 800G links can operate, they need testing. San Diego — The 2024 Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC) took place here from March 25 to 28. While companies highlighting their optical transceiver modules, semiconductors, and network equipment all touted how they support AI and data centers, none of that happens without test equipment. Optical […]
RF generators produce test signals to 40 GHz
The SMB100B series from Rohde & Schwarz produces microwave carriers to 40 GHz. Test-instrument manufacturer Rohde & Schwarz introduced a series of four microwave signal generators, the SMB100B. The instruments come with four models depending on top frequency: 12.75 GHz, 20 GHz, 31.8 GHz, and 40 GHz. All models support AM, FM, phase, and pulse […]
What is intermodulation, and is it good or bad? Part 2
A mixer can upconvert and downconvert a modulated signal with no loss of baseband information. Part 1 of this series described intermodulation resulting from the combining of two or more sinusoidal signals through a nonlinear device such as the mixer in Figure 1. The mixer’s output is the product of its two inputs, and its […]
What is intermodulation, and is it good or bad? Part 1
Sinusoidal inputs applied to a nonlinear system produce an output containing different frequencies, and the results can be good, bad, or ugly. According to the dictionary definition, intermodulation is “the production in an electrical device of currents having frequencies equal to the sums and differences of frequencies supplied to the device.” In the literature of […]
Perform phase noise and VCO measurements to 50 GHz
Rohde & Schwarz bumps up the frequency with the FSPN50 phase noise analyzer and VCO tester.
Why does the Fourier transform provide apparently inaccurate results, and what can I do about it? part 2
A bare-bones implementation of the Fast Fourier Transform helps illuminate how to extract frequency information from input data samples. In part 1 of this series, we reviewed the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and manually calculated one DFT shown in Table 1. Table 1. Manual DFT results DFT input Complex DFT |DFT| 3 12 + j0 […]
