Oscilloscopes to high-end analyzers—those are the solutions that the T&M industry spans. The products would include spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, protocol analyzers, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and handheld testers. In the communications sector, these products are used in the wireless networks, the wired networks, and the LAN/WAN environments. These products also find significant use in the broadcast and in educational institutes, and software houses. The last two especially use these products for the R&D in communications.

Technology Options

This is one sector that has to be always ahead of the emerging technology trends. Be it in the semiconductor or the manufacturing or the service provider segment, T&M products have to be ahead or on par with the emerging industry standards, as they have to facilitate the deployments. Take for example wireless: Everyone knows that 3G is in trials or is getting deployed in some places. Now for the deployment of the 3G networks, the service providers will look for the latest test equipment from the T&M vendors to allow them to define and manage their networks. Similarly, the 3G phone makers would require test equipment in their manufacturing processes. So players like Agilent, Acterna, and Tekronix have products that facilitate the services and manufacturing. The products that would be used in communications sectors like the testers, simulators, and analyzers have to be in consonance with the latest developments in ATM, bit-error-rate, cable (metal and optical), DSL, Frame Relay, ISDN, modems, MPEG, SDH/PDH/SONET, voice over packet, RF/microwave, and optical, among other things.

n Analyzers: Spectrum analyzers and network analyzers have been the next common general-purpose test and measurement instruments after oscilloscopes. The spectrum analyzer sketches a signal in the frequency domain like an oscilloscope, which sketches a signal in the time domain. Spectrum analyzers plot the voltage for each frequency component of the signal. An oscilloscope plots instantaneous voltage of a signal versus time. Spectrum analyzers can measure frequency, power, harmonic content, modulation, spurious, and noise. But it is being transformed as an application-specific tester. Most of the Spectrum Analyzers required are below 4GHz.

Network analyzers are used to watch a wide variety of devices, from components and materials to circuits, equipment, assemblies, and systems. It measures the transmission and reflection characteristics of linear circuit networks. There are two main types of network analyzers—scalar and vector. The scalar network analyzers measure only the amplitude portion of the S-parameters resulting in measurements such as transmission gain and loss, return loss, and standing wave ratios (SWR). Vector network analyzer measures and also shows the complete amplitude and phase characteristics of an electrical network. The shift is in favor of vector network analyzers.

n Newer Solutions: Advances in communications technologies have led to test equipment that can evaluate new emerging standards. So there has been upgradation in the modulation and demodulation techniques is areas like GSM and CDMA. These features have been incorporated in signal analyzers too. Need for greater capacity and faster throughput has let to creation of different testing parameters. For example, vendors are today prepared to test 80 gigs too.

n Change, the Only Common Factor: Take a basic time-domain tool like an oscilloscope. For today’s mixed signal applications the engineers require mixed signal oscilloscopes to view and trouble shoot analog and digital parts of the circuit simultaneously.

Today, spectrum analyzers are no longer simple frequency domain instruments. They come with application personalities to solve the format specific measurement problems like GSM, CDMA, and 3G. A data tool like logic analyzer has to provide deeper insight and solve the signal integrity problems through higher-level abstraction of data.

n A Management Solution: In the last couple of years, T&M has moved from being a hardware product to a software solution. Today, it is more about a management solution.