New look VNA cuts costs of S-band parameter measurements

2nd June 2014

Mick Elliott

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Datasheet

Prices as much as 75% lower than traditional bench-top vector network analysers (VNAs) will attract attention to Anritsu’s new ShockLine family of VNAs. For the money, the company promises high accuracy, sensitivity and sweep speed. These instruments are radically different from conventional VNA design. There is no display or keypad. They are controlled remotely by computer via a LAN or other connection.

A small 2U chassis means the instrument fits snugly into rack configurations.

Anritsu emphasises the space-saving design does not compromise performance. The VNA features a 70µs/point sweep speed, >110dB dynamic range and corrected directivity of >42dB. The new instruments have been designed for the testing of passive devices such as cables, connectors, filters, and antennas in a wide variety of engineering, manufacturing and education applications.

They can perform the single-ended and mixed-mode S-parameter measurements typically required for production testing of passive devices, offering frequency coverage up to 40GHz. They can also conduct path loss characterisation of complex systems. Faults in broadband devices can be easily and quickly identified using a time-domain with time-gating option.

In addition to the MS46522A VNAs, Anritsu has unveiled the Economy ShockLine MS46322A 2-port VNA, for measurements up to 40GHz and the MS46524A 4-port VNAs for differential and multi-port device testing up to 7GHz. All ShockLine VNAs support SCPI command programming and have software driver support, so they can be easily integrated into most programming environments.

The ShockLine series also features a powerful graphical user interface for applications in which the VNA is connected to a touchscreen monitor, keyboard and mouse. A LAN interface provides more robust control and faster data transmission compared to USB and GPIB, respectively.