MilliBox will showcase MBX33 with GIM04-300x at its booth 7101 for the first time at IMS2022. MBX33 is a 2 meter far-field mmWave anechoic chamber with large cavity designed to test larger devices under test (DUT) with the convenience and affordability of benchtop setups. GIM04-300x is a member of the modular mmWave and THz phased array antenna positioner GIM04 featuring three axis of position control, Azimuth, elevation and polarization and a DUT width capacity of 300 mm.

The DUT used for this live demonstration is the 22 to 27 GHz 8 x 8 active phased array from Extreme Waves Inc., G-2602-8x8. With its innovative and proprietary dual-polarization dual-beam antenna design, the full DUT beamforming capabilities are controlled directly from a remote PC application, including phase and gain control for the 64 dual-polarization Si beamformer channels and the dual up/down-converters with wide IF bandwidth.

The measurement instrument used in this demonstration is the USB VNA from Copper Mountain Technologies (CMT), Cobalt C4209 with two CobaltFx FET1854 frequency extender modules with capabilities between 18 GHz and 54 GHz. The VNA is controlled from a PC where the MilliBox controller resides, giving a one screen view of all aspects of this over-the-air measurement setup.

“This demonstration is incredibly powerful at showing what a modular, affordable benchtop mmWave antenna test setup should look like in anyone’s lab” said Jeanmarc Laurent the creator of MilliBox, “Having the DUT control, the VNA control and the positioner control all under one screen shows an unprecedented level of integration and is the most elaborate real-life demonstration we have ever done thank to the contribution of our partners at Extreme Waves and CMT.”

The demonstration consists of steering the DUT beam in any possible direction then displaying the captured 3D beam pattern in real time over the entire VNA trace in a single position sweep.