Oscilloscopes and probes play a vital role for engineers designing and testing power electronics. Delivering electrical power to analog and digital circuits and systems is more than just DC measurements. That’s because nearly all power-converter circuits use switching techniques to maximize efficiency. Silicon carbide (SiC and gallium nitride (GaN) transistors, with their higher voltage and […]
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Review: PCBite circuit board holder and probe kit
The PCBite kit holds your circuit board in place while you probe it, reducing the risk of short circuits. Recently, I’ve had to test and characterize many small PC boards, including embedded processors, DC-DC converters, and other wireless-related products, for EMC issues. I’ve never really had an easy way to keep these boards from moving […]
Review: Tekbox TBCG4 harmonic comb generator
The Tekbox TBCG4 harmonic comb generator produces a wide range of known frequencies for EMC immunity testing and routine checking of EMC chambers. I’ve used harmonic comb generators for decades in various applications, including antenna measurements, cable resonance measurements, and shielding-effectiveness testing. I also find them useful for checking the daily consistency of test chambers […]
Free and low-cost online EE tools aid in design
Downloadable and online free and low-cost EE tools help engineers design and analyze circuits.
How to determine noise figure: part 4
Two incompatible definitions of noise factor can lead to confusion, which you can alleviate by understanding where the differences lie.
Should I use a spectrum analyzer, signal analyzer, or vector network analyzer? Part 4
A vector network analyzer can fully characterize components by deriving their scattering parameters. In earlier parts of this series, we looked at analog spectrum analyzers (part 1 and part 2) and vector signal analyzers (part 3), both of which monitor unknown signals, whether emanating from a system, device under test (DUT), or an enemy’s transmitter […]
Screenless oscilloscope fits 2U rack space
The MXO 5C screenless oscilloscope from Rohde & Schwarz comes in four or eight channels with 2 GHz bandwidth.
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 […]
APEC 2024: Test equipment
Test equipment is everywhere. Every trade show has it regardless of the focus. Power is no exception. At APEC 2024, EE World visited several booths displaying test equipment: meters, oscilloscopes, source-measure units (SMUs), bench power supplies, and electronic loads. The photos and videos below highlight what we saw, presented in alphabetical order by company. In […]
Perform phase noise and VCO measurements to 50 GHz
Rohde & Schwarz bumps up the frequency with the FSPN50 phase noise analyzer and VCO tester.
