Mesuro Ltd of Pencoed Technology Park, UK, a spin-off from Cardiff University’s Centre for High Frequency Engineering, has launched a new device characterization test solution, which utilizes an ‘envelope load pull technique’, along with the latest generation of commercial off-the-shelf PXI hardware and LabVIEW system design software from National Instruments.
The new ‘Rapid Load Pull’ product offering can replace traditional passive tuning networks within load pull test systems, offering the customer significant improvements in speed of test, says the firm. The way in which the Rapid Load Pull solution fits into the test environment allows for the existing measurement hardware to be re-used within the improved test station. The system can be supplied as a turnkey project to include, the NI portion with Mesuro Software/Coupler/Amplifier, or can be customer assembled. The system is currently available covering frequency ranges up to 4.4GHz.
The device output is measured on the receiver elements via the coupler, with the output then being down-converted to baseband. The loop algorithm, implemented in the LabVIEW FPGA Module, then calculates the required settings to form the reflected signal that is then presented to the device under test, based upon the requested impedance. The loop amplifier provides the active element to ensure that the loop can tune the impedance to any desired point on the Smith Chart. The NI PXI solution contains an embedded controller, on which the main Mesuro test software resides and operates. The system can perform all the required load pull tests and the data can be viewed within the measurement software or exported for use within EDA or other tools by the user.
National Instruments’ support of this project continues its expansion into the RF marketplace, specifically in the nonlinear area. “Finally, load pull goes digital! By using National Instruments PXI vector signal transceiver software-designed technology, which uses hardware programmable with the LabVIEW FPGA Module, Mesuro is redefining active load pull by combining the advantages of open- and closed-loop active load pull,” says Marc Vanden Bossche, Technical Market Development manager of the National Instruments Network Analysis Center of Excellence.
