Eight-Channel RF Measurement Solution addressing LTE and Beamforming

24 February 2012 – Agilent Technologies introduced enhancements to its N7109A multi-channel signal analyzer for emerging multichannel LTE, LTE-Advanced and MIMO RF measurement requirements, including LTE antenna beamforming and LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation. Building on the N7109A’s strengths for WiMAXTM and LTE MIMO measurements, these new enhancements enable designers to stay one step ahead of rapidly evolving LTE and LTE-Advanced communication standards.

“Our customers are driving the continuously evolving wireless communications technologies and standards,” said Mark Pierpoint, vice president and general manager of Agilent's Software and Modular Solutions Division. “The enhanced N7109A platform with up to eight measurement channels helps them achieve this, combining its multichannel capabilities with the 89600 VSA software’s new beamforming and carrier aggregation to deliver first-to-market capabilities, allowing LTE designers to fully analyze their next-generation antenna, base station and user equipment.”

Using the latest 89600 VSA software release 15, the Agilent N7109A signal analyzer delivers:

Phase synchronous measurements with up to eight RF channels in a single mainframe.

1. o         Verification and visualization of TD-LTE base station RF antenna beamforming, including Transmission Mode 7 (8x1 single layer using Port 5) and Transmission Mode 8 (8x2 dual layer using Ports 7 and 8).
2. o         Cross-channel measurements, including frequency response, cross correlation, coherence and more.
3. o         Dense, modular architecture that scales from two to eight channels in one 4U mainframe.

•         Independent center frequency tuning for each tuner module.

1. o         LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation measurements with each channel tuned to a different component carrier, or multiple channels tuned to each component carrier for MIMO signals.
2. o         Simultaneous uplink and downlink measurements.

•         Correction wizard

1. o         Integrated with Agilent’s 89600 VSA software, this step-by-step wizard provides accurate amplitude and phase measurements at the device under test.

Agilent’s 89600 VSA software is the industry’s premier vector signal analysis solution for R&D. Providing advanced general-purpose and standards-based tools for evaluating signal spectrum, modulation and time characteristics, the software enables engineers to successfully troubleshoot physical-layer signal problems. This advanced software is compatible with not just the N7109A multichannel signal analyzer, but with more than 30 other Agilent products, including signal analyzers, oscilloscopes and logic analyzers. It runs on Microsoft Windows®-based PCs or on PC-based instruments.

Availability

The new Agilent N7109A eight-channel configuration is orderable now, complementing the existing two- and four-channel configurations. A new option is available to upgrade existing N7109A systems to an eight-channel configuration.

•         N7109A-C02, two-channel configuration

•         N7109A-C04, four-channel configuration

•         N7109A-C08, eight-channel configuration

•         N7109AF-4CH, two-channel to four-channel upgrade

•         N7109AF-8CH, four-channel to eight-channel upgrade