Steve Alves, Consilium Technologies MD, says the MXA is the industry's fastest signal analyser with the highest accuracy of any midrange analyser.
"The MXA's industry-leading measurement speed enables dramatically improved throughput and yields in manufacturing. This new platform provides the highest performance in a midrange analyser, enabling engineers to solve design challenges for current and emerging applications faster and with fewer iterations," he says.
The MXA platform allows flexible signal and spectrum analysis measurements for the design and manufacture of wireless communication devices to current and emerging standards. It seamlessly integrates a broad range of standards-based measurements, such as WiMAX, with Agilent's 89601A vector signal analysis (VSA) software in a single instrument.
"In addition to running on an open Windows(r) XP Professional operating system, the MXA provides an advanced signal analysis user interface, which groups all measurement features and functions on a single front panel," Alves says.
Optional measurement application software provides preconfigured test routines for testing 802.16e WiMAX, W-CDMA, HSDPA/HSUPA and phase-noise applications. Running the 89601A VSA software application in the MXA enables advanced signal modulation analysis and troubleshooting of the industries broadest selection of formats including: 2G, 3G, 3.5G, WiMAX, WLAN, digital video, and Private Mobile Radio.
A complete set of one-button-power measurements are standard. These include ACPR, Channel Power, Occupied Bandwidth, Spectrum Emissions Mask, CCDF, Burst Power and Spurious Emission.
"Both performance and speed are critical for communications and general purpose applications," said Pat Byrne, president of Agilent's Electronic Measurements Group. "The MXA platform ensures that no compromises are required between performance and speed. It is an ideal complement to our PSA Series, which continues to lead the industry for high performance analysers with the best accuracy and a 14 bit ADC that provides the highest dynamic range, 80 MHz analysis bandwidth. The MXA highlights our ongoing and continued commitment to developing innovative solutions that exceed the performance and functionality requirements of new and emerging wireless applications."
Alves says a breakthrough characteristic of the MXA platform is its intrinsic speed, which allows measurements from 30 percent to 300 percent faster than other analysers. The MXA produces a W-CDMA ACLR fast-mode measurement speed of <14 ms, marker peak search at <5 ms, RF centre frequency tune and transfer over GPIB at <51 ms. Measurement mode switching speeds are typically <75ms. This exceptional speed enables a fast and seamless change between WiMAX, W-CDMA, HSDPA/HSUPA, phase noise measurements, and 89601A VSA software. As a result, the MXA provides the fastest local and remote measurements for accelerating design verification and expediting automated tests.
The MXA platform supports multiple frequency ranges from 20 Hz to 3.6, 8.4, 13.6 and 26.5 GHz, internal preamplifiers up to 26.5 GHz, and analysis bandwidths of 10 MHz or 25 MHz. This fully scalable performance is complemented by MXA's 15 dBm third-order intercept, -151 dBm/Hz displayed average noise level and 72 dB W-CDMA ACLR dynamic range, as well as 0.3 dB total absolute amplitude accuracy, which is made possible by the all-digital, 14-bit ADC IF section. The dynamic range is maximised with a built-in 2 dB mechanical step attenuator over the full frequency range and an available 1dB electronic attenuator to 3.6 GHz. The MXA platform features an enhanced version of Agilent's familiar intuitive user interface. Its new functionality includes six trace displays, 12 markers, trace math to manipulate measurement data and an auto-tune capability that eases measurement setup.