The solution leading to rapid digital testing-Tektronix real-time spectrum analyzer and its application in RFID testing
chrispeng [ad_1]
Tektronix is one of the leading suppliers of test, measurement and monitoring products, solutions and services for the communications, computers, semiconductor industries, military/aviation, consumer electronics, education and other global industries. It has 60 years of experience and can design, build, configure and manage next-generation global communication networks and advanced technical equipment for its users. It is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, and has operating organizations in 19 countries and regions around the world. Tektronix is a recognized expert in ensuring signal integrity and has extensive knowledge and experience in complex high-speed measurement and analysis. On February 1, 2007, its product RSA6100A series real-time spectrum analyzer won two awards: it was selected by EDN as one of the “100 Hot Products in 2006”; the International Engineering Society (IEC) awarded the DesignVision 2007 Award for Test and Measurement Equipment . The previous honor aims to commend the outstanding cutting-edge products designed by engineers this year that have contributed to the advancement of the electronics industry. It is worth mentioning that the Tektronix Real-Time Spectrum Analyzer (RTSA) is the only analyzer in the world specifically designed to solve digital RF problems.
In order to be able to understand the latest developments in the industry, following the pace of Tektronix, we have participated in Tektronix’s new product launches many times and paid attention to the company’s solutions for rapid digital testing including radio frequency identification (RFID) applications.
1 Arbitrary waveform generator AWG5000
Tektronix held a press conference in Beijing on February 7, 2007 to comprehensively introduce the new high-resolution arbitrary waveform generator AWG5000. Mr. Faride Akretch, the global field marketing manager of Tektronix signal source products, attended the conference and introduced in detail the technical characteristics and huge market value of AWG5000.
This newly launched signal source product provides a vertical resolution of up to 14 bits, allowing users to generate various signals in a dynamic range of up to 600MHz bandwidth. Due to the combination of excellent analog performance and a large number of digital signal outputs, this product is specially developed for digital RF testing. It will also be the only product on the market that can provide all signal output for interface testing between baseband and RF.Figure 1 Mr. Faride Akretch is giving a technical explanation
“Digital RF”, as a technology that integrates digital computing technology with traditional analog radio frequency technology, is a powerful driving force for the development of new wireless technologies. The application of digital RF has brought special test requirements. Tektronix has integrated digital and analog signal processing technology in one device, and strengthened functions such as analog-to-digital converter (ADC), digital-to-analog converter (DAC), and RF. The AWG5000 series provides a variable sampling rate of up to 1.2GS/s and 14-bit resolution. It is also equipped with two or four analog channels and up to 28 digital outputs, which allows users to simulate the “real environment” In the signal, it is economical and efficient to complete the test work in various digital RF applications.
AWG5000 has a complete digital and analog signal generation function. According to the type between baseband and RF (analog/digital), users only need a signal source device to simultaneously achieve high vertical resolution and spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) analog I/Q (in-phase carrier amplitude/ Quadrature phase carrier amplitude) and IF output, or provide multiple parallel digital outputs for digital I/Q. Therefore, when users debug prototypes or verify baseband/RF, a signal generator with both analog output and parallel digital output functions will be an ideal tool. With this tool, users can effectively reproduce and generate ideal signals. , Distorted signals or signals under “real conditions” such as noise, jitter, glitches, and other system defects.
The AWG5000 series consists of four models of products. These products are divided into two types with two analog channels or four analog channels. Each type is divided into two versions. The maximum variable sampling rate is 600MS/s and 1.2GS. /s. All four models have 14bit vertical resolution and can mark signal channels with up to 80dB SFDR and two digital speeds per analog channel. The two-channel version of AWG5000 also provides a pair of 14-bit parallel digital output options, which can be used to test digital IF or digital I/Q systems. In addition, the four-channel model AWG5000 provides an ideal tool for 4x4MIMO system testing. As a signal generator that perfectly integrates unparalleled speed, resolution and digital output functions, AWG5000 becomes the first signal generator that can meet most mixed signal testing requirements.
Tektronix is also equipped with a 10.4-inch LCD touch screen color display and Windows XP user interface on the AWG5000 to help users improve work efficiency. The integrated display screen and user interface reduce the operator’s need for other auxiliary equipment such as computers during use. In addition, due to the adoption of Gigabit Ethernet LAN and GPIB interfaces, AWG5000 also provides necessary interface control functions for applications in the manufacturing field.
AWG5000 can easily exchange data with third-party software, including MatLab, MathCad, and Microsoft Excel that are often used in creating waveforms, data streams, and mixed-signal operations. This is beneficial to engineering and technical personnel for product design and product debugging. Conformance testing.
AWG5000 uses the same platform as Tektronix’s newly launched AWG7000 series arbitrary waveform generators. Now, customers can use only one AWG5000 to generate high-resolution signals for analog circuits, digital baseband circuits and intermediate frequency (IF) circuits in mixed-signal equipment, thereby greatly improving test efficiency and reducing test costs. AWG5000 provides an ideal choice for the verification of various digital RF technologies, including software-defined radio (SDR), radar, WiMAX, WiFi, MIMO and UWB.
2 DSA70000 series real-time digital serial spectrum analyzer and P7500 probe
Almost at the same time when the arbitrary waveform generator AWG5000 was released, Tektronix announced on February 5, 2007 that the company would launch the DSA70000 series real-time digital serial spectrum analyzer (DSA) and the P7500 probe in the near future. Its world-leading test performance provides the strongest support for the development of a new generation of high-speed serial data application standards (such as PCI-Express 2.0, HDMI 1.3 and SATA III). These two new products form a complete test product portfolio with the recently launched DSA8200 sampling oscilloscope and AWG7000 signal generator from Tektronix, and this industry-leading test product can meet the needs of high-speed serial data technology development work. The needs of the designers.All these instruments are for the 2nd and 3rd generation serial
Designed for data testing requirements, it can provide designers with a new high-speed testing platform.
The new DSA70000 series real-time spectrum analyzer with a bandwidth of up to 20GHz is the world’s fastest 4-channel real-time analyzer, and the P7500 series is the world’s highest-speed active differential probe. These devices not only complement Tektronix’s recently launched DSA8200 equivalent-time oscilloscope (bandwidth of 70 GHz) and AWG7000 series arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) (sampling rate up to 20 GS/s, bandwidth of 5.8 GHz) product lines have been supplemented , And provides the most powerful work platform in the field of serial data testing.
The new generation of Tektronix measurement tools include real-time oscilloscopes, equivalent time or sampling oscilloscopes, differential probing, logic analyzers and signal sources, which can assist engineers in coping with the challenges of serial data measurement. These next-generation instruments and application software solutions together constitute a complete set of new test platforms for high-speed serial data. The outstanding performance of the solution ensures that the most complex and challenging serial data signals can be captured, displayed and analyzed.
3 Application of Tektronix spectrum analyzer in RFID test
RFID technology has been put into commercial use more than two decades ago, and it can be traced back to the military identification enemy or enemy (IFF) system in the 1940s. The latest developments in submicron complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS) have greatly supported RFID technology in terms of performance and cost, and are expected to make RFID technology ubiquitous. With the decline in equipment prices and the expansion of the global market, the application of RFID is growing rapidly. In addition, many short-range Near Field Communication (NFC) links using similar technologies have also entered a period of rapid growth.
RFID and NFC technologies require timing and modulation measurements of radio wave emission (RF), which are faced with various unusual engineering measurement tasks. Transient signals, bandwidth-efficient modulation, backscattered data, and passive terminals all require the addition of dedicated measurement functions that are not provided in traditional test instruments. This requires 1) tools that can trigger transient events that represent RFID activities; 2) tools that capture and analyze the dialogue between the terminal and the interrogator; 3) modulation analysis tools; 4) conformance testing tools. Tektronix Real-Time Spectrum Analyzer (RTSA) integrates the above four tools with only one tool. In a real-time spectrum analyzer, the unique trigger-capture-analysis functions of broadband vector signal analyzers, spectrum analyzers and real-time spectrum analyzers can be simultaneously obtained, which can easily cope with the capture of transient signals in all RFID applications.
Aiming at the characteristics of RFID, Tektronix has developed a special RFID test software on the real-time spectrum analyzer platform, which can meet all the above RFID test requirements and provide testers with a very convenient test method. Whether it is a pulse or a frequency hopping signal, the real-time capture capability of the real-time spectrum analyzer can capture 100% of the RFID signal. At the same time, the real-time spectrum analyzer has multi-domain test functions in frequency domain, time domain and digital modulation domain, which can meet the time-related parameter test and digital demodulation test of RFID. The special RFID test software provides all the current RFID decoding functions and can directly decode the data. At the same time, Tektronix’ patented frequency domain template trigger technology provides a unique solution for testing frequency hopping RFID signals.
At present, Tektronix provides seven models that can handle a full range of RFID measurements, including: 1) Frequency measurement (carrier frequency, OBW, spurious, transmit power, ACLR, etc.); 2) Timing measurement (between reader and tag) Turnaround time, carrier rise time/fall time, settling time, etc.) and modulation measurement (symbol table, modulation depth, eye diagram, constellation diagram, etc.); 3) and the corresponding conformance test (ISO 18000-Part 6 Type A, B, C, etc.).
At present, the working frequencies of RFID products are defined as low frequency, high frequency and VHF, and RFID products of different frequency bands have different characteristics.
(1) Low frequency (working frequency is from 125KHz to 134KHz)
(2) High frequency (working frequency is 13.56MHz)
(3) Very high frequency (operating frequency is between 860MHz and 960MHz)
(4) Other frequency bands: In addition to the above three main frequency bands, the current 315MHz, 433MHz, 2GHz-2.5GHz, and 5.8GHz frequency bands are also used by RFID systems.
RFID technical standards are the most basic part of the RFID standard system. The main issues involved in the base include:
(1) The legally used frequency range includes the radio frequency usage specifications for the communication between the reader and the electronic tag; the air interface standard mainly stipulates the basic conventions required for the air information exchange between the electronic tag and the reader; other standards, data Format definition, interface and application, etc.
(2) The issue of radio regulations is the most basic issue faced by RFID technology and applications. Although radio frequency resources are a gift from nature to humans, how to make them serve human needs requires people to formulate some rules, which are very similar to road traffic rules. The main issues involved are: the frequency range allocated by RFID applications; the power level limitation of RFID equipment transmission; the frequency band limitation of RFID equipment transmission (mainly include the main lobe level of the emission and the bandwidth and the level of the emission side lobe and the bandwidth ); Other spurious emission limits.
(3) Product testing and certification are required by all three parties in the RFID industry chain. Through testing and identification, basic specifications about product specifications and quality can be established, thereby reducing the complexity of people’s understanding of products, and at the same time establishing a reputation system.
The RFID industry covers a variety of technologies and applications, many of which are different from typical communication links. The latest international RFID standards require a complete FHSS signal, a transient half-duplex RF burst composed of ASK modulation, an unusual encoding and a robust anti-collision protocol. In order to reduce the need for fine measurement settings, simplify the user interface, and easily obtain diagnostic insights, Tektronix has launched the RTSA series of real-time spectrum analyzers equipped with RFID analysis software. Through the first complete RFID analysis software package, the real-time spectrum analyzer supports various popular international RFID standards. This function greatly speeds up development diagnosis, pre-conformance testing, and production inspections. In addition, the RFID analysis software package fully supports time-correlated multi-domain measurement, which improves the reliability of debugging evaluation. The measurement standards that require demodulation of DSB-ASK, SSB-ASK and PR-ASK and the necessary symbol decoding for each supported format can now be easily completed by pressing a key on the RTSA. This greatly enhances engineering design efficiency and shortens the product development cycle. RTSA can also help engineers perform RFID measurements that cannot be done by traditional swept frequency analyzers or vector signal analyzers or require fine and time-consuming test tuning. Whether it’s debugging problems in the development phase, meeting government spectrum regulations, passing a series of pre-compliance tests, and preparing for product certification, RTSA provides an ideal solution for analyzing RFID signals generated by interrogators and terminals.
After a series of interviews, data collection and sorting, we learned that Tektronix’s excellence is more convinced that Tektronix has such excellent products. We believe that Tektronix test equipment can be used not only in chip production and evaluation, to provide designers with a basis, but also in the field. For example, the performance of electronic tags has a great relationship with the environment of use. When we do not pay attention to the material, sticking the tag on the surface of the material that is prone to eddy current will greatly reduce the distance between the tag and the reader, and even cause the frequency of the tag to deviate. , So that the transmission capacity of the antenna is greatly reduced. We share the technical resources of Tektronix with readers, RFID professionals and other IT industry experts, hoping to help you solve certain problems in research and development, system integration, and application sites in order to develop the RFID industry faster and better . The development of technology is endless. With the development of RFID technology, we also hope that Tektronix can create newer and cheaper practical products in the research and development of various RF and RFID products.
[ad_2]
