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FROM EDN EUROPE: 26.5 GHz spectrum analyzer targets digital-radio measurements
By Graham Prophet -- EDN, 12/7/2000
Agilent's E4440A spectrum analyser is a 26.5-GHz instrument that enables you to make complex RF and microwave measurements with new degrees of accuracy and flexibility (Picture). Key points in its specification include a distortion-free dynamic range of 113 dB and sensitivity of –153 dBm (–167 dBm with an optional preamplifier and as much as 3 GHz). The 4440A has an all-digital IF (at 321.4 MHz), and all of the signal processing to yield the measured results is digital and carried out by a PA-RISC processor working on a signal that is digitised at 30M samples/sec and 14 bits. You get a 1-Hz resolution bandwidth, and you can operate the instrument in swept or FFT modes. The 4440A is flexible; for example, you can use the resolution bandwidth in 1-Hz increments over 160 settings, rather than a traditional 1/3/10 stepwise setting, and you can set the input attenuator in 2-dB steps over an 80-dB range. Sweep speed reaches 1 msec, and the absolute-accuracy specification is 0.3 dB.
You can use a phase-noise-optimisation routine to examine close-in or far-out phase noise; Agilent says you can make more accurate measurements closer to a signal carrier (less than 50 kHz away) than ever before. Agilent plans a series of upgrades that will be implemented purely in software; digital demodulation will later be available to demodulate wideband CDMA and other third-generation digital-cellular signals. The E4440A will cost $48,000.
