EDN’s 20th annual Innovation Awards Finalists
-- EDN, February 18, 2010
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&& PREVIOUS FINALIST | MAIN | NEXT FINALIST >> Category: RF/Microwave Test Finalist: PXA signal-analyzer implements with Noise Floor Extension, Agilent Technologies  A fundamental performance characteristic of a spectrum/signal analyzer is its noise floor, usually described in terms of displayed average noise level (DANL) or noise figure. An analyzer’s noise floor limits the low end of dynamic range and the accuracy of measurements on small signals. While an analyzer’s inherent noise floor can be lowered through hardware design and component choices, there are practical performance limits, and cost is a major factor. Noise floor is primarily determined by analog circuits such as mixers and amplifiers, and unlike the Moore’s law improvement pace set by digital circuits, their analog counterparts advance slowly—and at considerable cost. Fortunately, Agilent reports it has harnessed the dramatic improvements in DSP and ADC technologies to substantially improve the critical analog specification of spectrum analyzer DANL. The Agilent PXA signal analyzer implements a new technique called Noise Floor Extension (NFE), where its own noise floor is precisely modeled from calibration data and then subtracted from measured signals to reduce effective noise level. With no extra steps or speed penalty, NFE reduces noise for spectrum measurements including CW power, adjacent channel power, and pulsed-RF characterization. NFE also improves phase noise and noise figure measurements. Agilent says the PXA is the first analyzer to combine real-time measurement processing with an unprecedented characterization of its own noise, allowing that noise to be accurately removed from measurements without an individual measurement calibration. Customers can now experience noise floor improvements up to 12 dB: -161 dBm typical DANL at 2 GHz without a preamp, and –172 dBm with the preamp. |
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