August 20, 2013. Anritsu has expanded its VectorStar family of vector network analyzers (VNAs) with the introduction of the MS4640B Series. Featuring a number of new measurement capabilities, including PulseView, which provides pulse profile, point-in-pulse, and pulse-to-pulse measurements of S-parameters, and DifferentialView for true-mode stimulus S-parameter measurements, the MS4640B helps engineers address the challenges associated with testing and characterizing components and subsystems designed for radar and today’s high-speed serial applications.
PulseView enables design engineers and component manufacturers in the aerospace and defense industry to accurately test and characterize designs under pulse conditions. The 2.5-ns resolution with 100-dB dynamic range, coupled with independent measurement gates, provides clarity of results. It also enables users to see performance perturbations on the rising/trailing edges and within a pulse that have been previously missed by other systems. Capture time of 500 ms permits users to measure under long pulse repetition interval conditions or to conduct pulse-to-pulse measurements over an extended number of pulses.
An additional IF digitizer option, required for the PulseView application, provides fast digitization as well as four internal pulse generators. The pulse generators can be used to modulate devices under test (DUT) or one of a series of associated modulation test sets also available. These features are complemented by a graphical interface that simplifies measurement setup and raises confidence that the user is measuring under the correct conditions.
DifferentialView, together with an optional internal second source, provides engineers developing differential amplifiers or signal integrity engineers working on high-speed serial designs with the ability to evaluate their designs under true mode stimulus conditions. A GUI allows engineers to establish changes and see the results immediately without cumbersome swapping of screen displays. When DifferentialView is used with Anritsu’s four-port test sets, users can make measurements of differential, common-mode, and mixed-mode S-parameters.
The MS4640B maintains the inherent advantages of the VectorStar platform. VectorStar features high-performance measurement capability down to frequencies as low as 70 kHz to achieve highly accurate S-parameter measurements necessary to accurately model devices in simulation applications. It achieves high-quality, low-frequency data that ensures good DC-term estimation and improves causality.
VectorStar VNAs are available in frequency ranges from 70 kHz to 20, 40, 50 and 70 GHz, and as broadband systems from 70 kHz to 125 GHz. VectorStar can also provide frequency coverage up to 750 GHz, with mm-wave modules from either Virginia Diodes Inc. (VDI) or OML Inc., depending on the specific frequency range required.
The MS4640B family has a base of $76,325. PulseView is $30,000, the IF digitizer option is $15,000, DifferentialView is $10,150, and the second source option starts at $11,270.