Waveguide mixer supports V-Band mmW measurement

Adoption of the millimeter-wave band is increasing the need for new instruments supporting accurate and high-sensitivity measurements of wider-band signals.

Not only are wider bandwidths being used for HD video streaming at sports events and in broadcast studios as well as for WLAN applications using WiGig (802.11ad), it is also seeing increasing use for human detection and vehicle sensing applications.

Evaluation of the spectrum of millimeter-wave band ultra-wideband signals requires solutions to measure the characteristics of the transmission easily and accurately. Conventional harmonic mixers used for this task suffer from large conversion loss as well as image responses where a non-existent ghost signal is displayed.

The High Performance Waveguide Mixer MA2806A solve these problems by supporting accurate and high-sensitivity measurements of wireless communications infrastructure and equipment using wideband millimeter-wave signals.

Key features of the MA2806A include a P1dBperformance of better than 0dB as well as a minimum sensitivity performance of -150 dBm/Hz which means it can measure extremely weak signals not found by conventional measurement systems; by combining the MA2806A with the MS2830A designed for a high IF of 1.875 GHz, the solution supports spectrum mask measurements of 1-GHz bandwidth signals without image response effects; the MA2806A also comes with the conversion loss correction data for all frequencies which allows for a simplified measurement procedure.