High performance, portability and low cost
- 300 kHz to 6 GHz operation
- High speed of > 5000 dual-port s-parameters per second
- ‘Quad RX’ four-receiver architecture for optimal accuracy
- 118 dB dynamic range at 10 Hz bandwidth
- 0.005 dB RMS trace noise at bandwidth of 140 kHz
- Compact half-rack, lightweight package
- 3 year warranty
- PC-controlled over USB using Windows software
- Reference plane offsetting and de-embedding
- Time domain and port impedance transformations
- Tabular and graphic print and save formats, including Touchstone
- P1dB, AM to PM, and stand-alone signal generator utilities
- Fully accessible guided 8 and 12-term calibration processes
- 6 calibration modes, including unknown thru and connected DUT isolation
Making vector network analysis accessible
Today's microwave measuring instruments need to be straightforward, accurate, portable and affordable. No longer restricted to specialists, they are now used by scientists, educators, surveyors, inspectors, engineers and technicians in radio and gigabit data applications. Now Pico Technology has applied its expertise in microwave sampling oscilloscopes and time domain transmission and reflectometry to bring you a USB vector network analyzer.
The PicoVNA 106 is a professional USB-controlled, laboratory grade vector network instrument of unprecedented performance, portability and affordability. Despite its small size and low cost, the instrument boasts a ‘Quad RX’ four-receiver architecture to eliminate the uncorrectable errors, delays and fragility of three-receiver designs with internal transfer switches.
The PicoVNA 106 offers exceptional dynamic range of 118 dB and only 0.005 dB RMS trace noise at its maximum operating bandwidth of 140 kHz. It can also gather all four s-parameters at every frequency point in just 190 µs; in other words a 500 point 2-port .s2p Touchstone file in less than one tenth of a second. The cost is so low that the PicoVNA 106 could even be used as a cost-effective high-dynamic-range scalar network analyzer! It's affordable in the classroom, small business and even amateur workshop, yet capable in the microwave expert's laboratory.
Vector network analysis everywhere
With all these advantages, the PicoVNA 106 is ideal for field service, installation test and classroom applications. Its remote automation interface extends its use to applications such as:
Test automation or the OEM needing to integrate a reflectometry or transmission measurement core, in:
- Electronics component, assembly and system, and interface/interconnect ATE (cable, PCB and wireless)
- Material, geological, life-science and food science tissue imaging or penetrating scan and radar applications
- Inspection, test, characterization or calibration in the manufacture, distribution and service center industries
- Broadband cable and harness test at manufacture, installation and fault over life
- Antenna matching and tuning
In a VNA a swept sine-wave signal source is used to sequentially stimulate the ports of the interconnect or device under test. The amplitude and phase of the resultant transmitted and reflected signals appearing at both VNA ports are then received and measured. To wholly characterize a 2-port device under test (DUT), six pairs of measurements need to be made: the amplitude and phase of the signal that was emitted from both ports, and the amplitude and phase of the signal that was received at both ports for each source. In practice this can be achieved with a reasonable degree of accuracy with a single source, a transfer switch and two receivers; the latter inputs being switched through a further pair of transfer switches. Alternatively three receivers can be used with an additional input transfer switch or, as in the PicoVNA, four receivers can be used. Using four receivers eliminates the receiver input transfer switch errors (chiefly leakage and crosstalk) that cannot be corrected. These residual errors are always present in two- and three-receiver architectures and lead to lower accuracy than that of the Quad RX design.
Bias-Ts are often not provided, or available as costly extras, on other VNAs. Use the PicoVNA 106’s built-in bias-Ts to provide a DC bias or test stimulus to active devices without the complexity and cost of external DC-blocks. The bias is supplied from external power supplies or test sources routed to the SMB connectors adjacent to each VNA port.
A range of RF and Microwave accessories are available from Pico Technology. Test cables and calibration standards have particular significance to the overall performance of a VNA, so we recommend that you select your accessories carefully. Cables and standards are often the weakest links in a VNA measurement, generally contributing significantly to measurement uncertainty despite their high cost. At the lowest levels of uncertainty, costs can be significant and measurements can be compromised by seemingly quite minor damage or wear. For these reasons, many customers hold both premium-grade items for calibration, reference or measurement standards, and standard-grade items as working or transfer standards and cables. Pico Technology can now offer cost-effective solutions in both grades.
Two test cable types and grades are recommended and provided by Pico Technology. Both of high quality, with robust and flexible construction and stainless steel connectors, the main difference between them is the stability of their propagation velocity and loss characteristic when flexed; that is, the degree to which a measurement could change when the cables are moved or formed to a new position. Cables are specified in terms of flatness and phase variation at up to 6 GHz when a straight cable is formed as one 360° turn around a 10 cm mandrel.