Keithley Launches SignalMeister™ Version 2.0 as Only Waveform Creation Software with Object-Oriented User Interface Optimized for MIMO

First introduced in mid-2007, SignalMeister is a PC-based, next-generation waveform creation tool that lets engineers create highly complex signals required for today’s RF testing needs quickly and flawlessly. SignalMeister is an expandable software platform with a common user interface that allows creation of waveforms from multiple signal standards with optional additive signal impairments and channel modeling in a single development environment. Users download the waveforms they create to Keithley’s Series 2900 RF Vector Signal Generators. SignalMeister is ideally suited for the testing needs of manufacturers supplying mobile phones, wireless connectivity devices, RF chip sets, and components in both production and R&D environments.

SignalMeister Waveform Creation Software enables users to test all aspects of WiMAX communications equipment from 400MHz to 4GHz, and to 6GHz if WLAN measurements are needed, with all available modulation methods. This integrated software package enables users to create signals easily across a wide variety of signal types and use common features such as signal impairments and channel models to modify reference signals for extensive product testing. The software features an object-oriented GUI that allows users to create and download highly complex signals quickly and easily, just by dragging objects into a project work area, defining their parameters, and connecting them, without code development. It features forms-based signal definitions that guide the user through creation of complex signals and allows users to save objects and projects for re-use and sharing to save time and eliminate compatibility problems between users.

The software includes built-in libraries for many different signal types:
· Mobile Communications
o W-CDMA
o HSDPA
o HSUPA
o cdmaOne
o cdma2000
o 1xEV-DV
· Wireless Connectivity
o 802.11a-b-g-j-n WLAN(supports MIMO)
o 802.16e-2005 mobile WiMAX (supports WiBro)

SignalMeister will continue to evolve and expand to match the marketplace; more signal libraries will be added in the future.

Complex WiMAX Signal Test Made Easy

SignalMeister simplifies the task of testing a WiMAX signal, which is arguably the most complex modulation scheme in the world, and this complexity has made testing a challenge for manufacturers. WiMAX, particularly its mobile version 802.16e, uses both frequency- and time-domain multiplexing with constantly changing allocations of sub-carriers. WiMAX Wave 2 also uses multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) methods, including antenna beam-forming.

SignalMeister Waveform Creation Software allows the user to change the composition of uplink and downlink signals, i.e., to modify the parameters of standard signals, including the symbol rate, the bandwidth, the number of carriers, and more. It offers a choice of FFT sizes between 128 and 2048 and allows creation of WiMAX signals up to a bandwidth of 28MHz. The resulting signal can then be analyzed with Keithley’s Series 2800 Vector Signal Analyzer family with WiMAX enhancements in both time and frequency domains, either demodulating the signal or measuring its spectral performance using the Series 2800’s built-in spectrum analyzer or its spectral emissions mask measurement.

Tight Integration with Industry-Leading RF Signal Generator/Analyzer

Keithley’s Series 2900 RF Vector Signal Generator is part of the company’s line of innovative, next-generation RF test instrumentation. It features a flexible, software-defined radio (SDR) architecture that provides extremely fast measurement speed and allows it to adapt quickly to the changing test requirements of the wireless communications market without expensive hardware upgrades. All signals supported with this expanded version of SignalMeister can be created in addition to, or in combination with, other technology standard signals already available using a Series 2900 without any hardware modification.

With the Series 2900, Series 2800, and SignalMeister products, Keithley offers its customers a range of fast and accurate RF test instrumentation solutions. With an unrivaled combination of accuracy, repeatability, speed, flexibility, ease of use, and compact size, these award-winning instruments employ new approaches to test and measurement that enable users to reduce test time with less effort and money. In R&D applications, Keithley's RF test solutions help decrease product time to market while increasing productivity and lowering capital equipment costs. For production facilities testing wireless communication equipment and devices that are faced with intense budget and time-to-market constraints but cannot compromise on measurement quality, valuable rack or bench-top space, or ease of use, these Keithley instruments deliver exceptional measurements for the lowest test equipment investment.