Slide 1

Modular Hardware and
Software
Provide the Building
Blocks for Creating
Wideband
Measurement Solutions

Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies

Presented by:
Scott C. Nevin
R&D Software Engineer
Modular Product Operation,
Santa Rosa, California


Slide 2

Agenda
•What is this PXI I’m hearing about?
•Typical Wideband Measurements
•Wideband Solution Space from a Modular Perspective
•The Agilent Modular Value Proposition
•Flexible, Scalable and Upgradeable Solutions

Current Solutions and Modular Possibilities

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 3

PXI Chassis & Modules
PXI Module

26.5GHz VSA Modules

M9018A -Chassis
Chassis and VSA modules

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Slide 4

PCI/PCIe Links and Lanes

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Slide 5

PXI external controller interface
Standard PCIe cables and components simplify external controller interconnect

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Slide 6

Agilent M9018 Chassis backplane

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Slide 7

Modular Solution Space
A/D Industry
-In 2004 the US Department of Defense (DoD) announced its business
and technical strategy to adopt an Modular Open Systems Approach
(MOSA) for developing new systems or modernizing existing ones.
Here is a sample of the MOSA objectives taken from the Executive
summary. The document further states that these edicts will be
followed, where feasible.
o Adapt to evolving requirements and threats
o Leverage commercial investment
o Reduce the development cycle time and total life-cycle cost
o Enhance commonality and re-use of components among systems
o Enhance access to cutting edge technologies and products from multiple suppliers
o Mitigate the risks associated with technology obsolescence
o Mitigate the risks of a single source of supply over the life of a system
o Enhance life-cycle supportability

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 8

Modular Value
•Modular hardware need to be designed from the perspective of
breaking down the block diagram of an existing system.
• A complete VSA might become an attenuator / preselector module, a
downconverter (perhaps both Rf & uW), an LO module and a Digitizer module.
• A serious attempt should be made to allow maximum re-use of these modules.
In this way an LO designed for a VSA can be re-used in a VSG

•New Technology needs to be made available in module form as
soon as possible.
• Customers will find a way to utilize the module if it confers enough advantage
over the existing technology to make it worth the effort.

•Incremental improvements to system modules are acceptable
• Improving the performance of just one module can make for a much better
system.
• For example Improving LO phase noise in a module will improve overall
VSA specs

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 9

Hardware Example – Agilent M9392A VSA
M9360A Attenuator/Preselector Module
•YIG Tuned Filter Path BW 40 MHz, 3-26.5 GHz
•Through path 100 MHz-26.5 GHz
•70dB step attenuator
•Switches for signal routing to RF and µWave downconverters

M9302A LO Module
•Supplies LO to downconverters
•Supplies 100 MHz reference to digitizer for sampling clock
generation

M9361A Downconverter Module
•Frequency Range = 2.75-26.5 GHz
•IF center freq = 500 MHz
•IF BW = 250 MHz
•Aux input / switch for signal routing

M9351A Downconverter Module
•Frequency Range = 100 MHz to 2.9 GHz
•IF center freq = 500 MHz
•IF BW = 40 MHz

M9202A Digitizer / Digital IF Module
•12 bit resolution
•2 GS/s max sample rate
•1 GHz max BW
•Hardware digital downconversion
•High speed data upload

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 10

M9392A µW VSA

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Slide 11

Agilent Modular Products -- Building Blocks for
Creating Flexible Wideband Measurement Solutions

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Slide 12

M9392A / M9362A-D01 Combined Hardware

M9362A-D01
Downconverter
M9210A Digitizing Scope
M9155C
Switch

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Slide 13

Typical Wideband Measurements
• Parametric Measurements
• Radar
• Pulse rise time, fall time, overshoot, droop, PRI
• Unintended AM and PM, phase noise, pulse-to-pulse amplitude
and stability

• Communications
• LO feed through, IQ imbalance
• Unintended AM and PM, phase noise, frequency error, phase error
• ACPR, sensitivity, SNR

• Modulation
• Radar
• Chirp, Barker coding and frequency hopping, multichannel

• Communications
• EVM, throughput, channel characterization, MIMO, beam steering

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 14

Generation of Typical Wideband
•Signal Simulation
Measurements
• Designing Waveforms

•When creating waveforms for the Agilent M9330A 1.25G Sa/s
15bit QARB a broad set of applications are used. These include
Signal Studio, Agilent SystemVue and MATLAB. Each having its
own benefits.

•Wideband RF Measurements
• Up-converting baseband IQ waveforms
•The Agilent M9330A QARB is limited to generating a waveform
at a bandwidth within its Nyquist sample rate.
•Upconverting radar waveforms to microwave carriers can be
accomplished using the Agilent PSG (E8267D) and Option 016 –
which adds wideband IQ Inputs

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Slide 15

Wideband System Configuration

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Slide 16

Wideband Modular Solution Space
•Industry trends in general predicts movement of some business from
“traditional box” instruments to modular
• Particularly acute for manufacturing test systems

• High Speed - modules are an extension of the pc backplane
• Inherent Upgrade Opportunities
• Means longer useful service life since single modules upgrades can match test
requirements.
• Reduced cost of ownership since complete system does not need to be replaced.

• Flexibility - Multi-vendor mix match capability and system re-configurability
• Replace Rack & Stack – reduced footprint

•Agilent modular products can directly leverage our industry leading
measurement science (89601 VSA SW for example) – this measurement
capability is severely lacking in competitive modular solutions.

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 17

Modular Value (A Software Perspective)
•Modular systems use a defined software standard for instrument control
and can provide support for multiple programming environments.
– IVI-COM and IVI-C
– LabVIEW, MATLAB, .NET, and C++ leverage the IVI

•Modular systems should provide a consistent look and feel across all
modules or defined modular systems
– Each module has a software front panel control for manual setup and
diagnostic support
– A test developer experienced on one set of modules already has the software
programming skill to move to another set of modules

•A modular system should allow for the coordination and control of multiple
sub-systems
– A modular system should allow the overlap of setup and acquisition of different
instruments or sub-systems to minimize test times

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 18

Typical Module Software Structure
Interactive Interface

Module
Soft Front
Panels

Programming Interfaces

MATLAB

MATLAB
Driver

Visual Studio
(VB, C#, C++)
VEE

LabVIEW
LabWindows/ CVI

LabVIEW
Driver

IVI-COM and IVI-C Drivers
M9360A.dll

Agilent I/O Libraries
(AgVisa32.dll) Release 16

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 19

Typical Module Programming API

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Slide 20

Typical Module Soft Front Panel

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Slide 21

M9392A Vector Signal Analyzer SW Overview
Interactive Interfaces

M9392A
Soft Front
Panel

Programming Interfaces

MATLAB

89601A
VSA
Program

MATLAB
Driver

Visual Studio
(VB.Net, C#,
C/C++)

LabVIEW

VEE

LabVIEW
Driver

LabWindows/ CVI

IVI-COM and IVI-C Drivers
VSA “Instrument” Library
M9392A.dll
M9202A.dll

M9302A.dll

M9360A.dll

M9361A.dll

M9351A.dll

Agilent I/O Libraries (AgVisa32.dll) Release 16

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 22

M9392A User Interfaces

M9392A
Soft Front Panel

89600A VSA Measuring 800
MHz Radar Chirp

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Slide 23

89600 VSA Software Automation

89600A (v12.0):
COM API

89600B (v13.0):
•Backwards-compatible COM API
•Compatible with v12.0 only
•Exception: LTE v13.0 only
•SCPI programming ( v13.0)
•.NET programming interface
•New macro languages
•C # and Visual Basic.NET
•Internal editor or Visual Studio

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Slide 24

Basic Control Sequence
1) Set settings
Power

Frequency

2) Initiate HW Changes

3) Wait for Initiate
Complete

Initiate

Initiate Complete

Acq Time
BW

M9392A

M9392A

Trigger

Digitizer

LO

Setup
DUT and
other
HW

M9392A

Attn/Pre Downconverters
Digitizer

LO

Attn/Pre Downconverters

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 25

Basic Control Sequence
5) Get Data

4)Arm

32 bit complex
pairs

Arm

Wait for
DUT and
other HW

Trigger
happens,
Data is
acquired

M9392A

Digitizer

Get
Data
Cal and
post
process

M9392A.

Digitizer

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 26

Advanced Control Sequence for ATE
Settings

Initiate()

Abort()

Wait for Initiate
Complete()

Actual sample rate, BW,
and number of Samples
available

ARM()

Wait for Data
Available()

If no settings
changed

Get Data()

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 27

Modular Value – In Summary
Physical
measurement

Algorithms /
Devices

Agilent Labs

Signal
Conditioning
and Data
Conversion

Digital
Signal
Processing

 Breakthrough Technology
Performance

Insight

 Functional equivalent of
instruments in Modular form

Components /
Sub-systems

Technology &
Services

Complex
measurement
systems
software

Modules
Performance
Time to Market
3- 5 Years

Speed
Reliability
Cost

Instruments
 Optimized Performance

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 28

Solutions and Possibilities
•Current Solutions
– Microwave VSA and other useful system modules
• M9392A
• M9392A + M9155C µW switch + M9362A-D01 + M9210A

•Modular Possibilities
– This modular strategy is very attractive to system integrators who
can now make far more flexible, cost effective systems for their
clients
• With enough of the right component modules we can create solutions to
suit any market

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 29

Flexible, Scalable and Upgradeable Solutions
•Flexible
•Being able to serve multiple needs and is easily reconfigurable
•Agilent VSA software can exist as a Digitizer only
• Much of the VSA hardware could be leveraged into a VNA product

•Scalable
•Being able to coordinate multiple instances of a measurement or
sub-system
• The Agilent M9210A digitizers can be synchronized in to within one
sample by using the concept of an ASBus. The ASBus connects the ADC
sample clocks across multiple modules via a simple front panel adaptor

•Upgradeable
•Being able to easily improve functionality or performance by replacing
discrete modular components [includes customizable FPGA]
• Improving system performance by replacing individual modules

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 30

In Summary
• Modular products provide an level of flexibility and an upgrade path that
traditional box instruments typically cannot approach
• Many manufacturing customers are migrating to modular-style
instruments for improvements in speed and the reduced footprint.
• Other customers are migrating because to them Modular just makes
more sense (The DoD’s move to MOSA being a case in point)
• It is likely that Modular products will have a longer useful service life
because individual modules can be upgraded to improve system
performance over the service life of the instrument.
• If the Modular paradigm is proving attractive on these grounds alone,
then it must seem more compelling still as Agilent brings it’s industry
recognized Measurement science over to its modular products

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies


Slide 31

Questions?

Thank you!

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Copyright © 2011 Agilent Technologies