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Cover Feature A Complete Spectral System Analysis for RF/Microwave Engineers Eagleware Corp. Norcross, GA Historically, RF and microwave system designers have been forced to resort to a hodgepodge of commercial and custom-written software to characterize and simulate the frequency-domain behavior of complex RF systems and subsystems. This approach tends...

Product Feature A New Wideband Family of Oscillators Vari-L Co. Inc. Denver, CO Modern communication systems are designed to handle ever increasing amounts of data by utilizing more bandwidth and more sophisticated modulation schemes. Voltage controlled oscillators (VCO) are used in almost all radio and RF applications including cell...

Technical Feature Measurement of On-wafer Transistor Noise Parameters Without a Tuner Using Unrestricted Noise Sources This article presents a method for calibrating the four noise parameters of a noise receiver which does not require a tuner. The method permits using general (mismatched) noise sources, which may present very different...

Technical Feature Two-tone vs. Single-tone Measurement of Second-order Nonlinearity Darioush Agahi, William Domino and Nooshin Vakilian Conexant Systems Inc. Newport Beach, CA This article describes how to correctly find the second-order intercept point (IP2) from one- and two-tone tests, and presents measurement results in support of the theory. Relation...

Technical Feature Low Phase Noise SiGe Voltage-controlled Oscillators for Wireless Applications A low phase noise voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is one of the critical circuits in modern telecommunications systems. In recent years, silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS technology has become one of the most promising technologies for VCO designs. This article...

Technical Feature A Varactor-tuned Oscillator with Linear Tuning Characteristic Munkyo Seo, Joo-Yeol Lee and Kyung-Kuk Lee LG Electronics Inc. Seoul, Korea Sangwook Nam Seoul National University Seoul, Korea In certain areas of microwave applications such as FMCW radars, FM modulators and phase-locked loop (PLL) circuits, the system performance is...

Tutorial Externally Induced VCO Phase Noise This article describes the degradation of VCO phase noise due to noise on tuning and supply lines, particularly from tuning source resistance and supply voltage regulators. Dennis Colin Micronetics Wireless Hudson, NH VCOs, especially low noise wideband units, are extremely sensitive voltage-to-frequency converters,...

Product Feature Cost-effective Wireless Antenna Measurement Systems MI Technologies Duluth, GA Two new antenna measurement systems have recently been introduced that add to the MI-3600 antenna measurement product line. The MI-3600 family is comprised of 20 antenna measurement systems for single- or dual-axis antenna pattern measurements in the popular...

Product Feature A Mobile Ultra-low Phase Noise Sapphire Oscillator Poseidon Scientific Instruments Pty Ltd. Fremantle, Western Australia Radar, communications, and test and measurement designers require ever-improving phase noise performance in their master oscillator. For mobile system success, ultra-low phase noise performance must be coupled with exceptional immunity to vibration...

Technical Feature Axial Ratio Measurements of Single Circularly Polarized Antennas Robert Gunnels Andrew Corp. Orland Park, IL The measurement of antenna axial ratios must be done properly if accurate results are to be obtained. When measuring on a terrestrial antenna test range, a straightforward approach is often used whereby...