An Automated LNA/PPA Characterization System

In the competitive market of RFICs, components test plays a key role. In order to reduce the critical factor time to market, the main objective is to test the most products possible in the least amount of time, for the lowest cost and the highest accuracy. Automated tests help reaching this goal, for example for LNA/PPA measurements. A fully automated modular test system in industrial environment has been developed for RF and I/O products. This paper presents a part of this global test system and focuses on LNA/PPA measurements capabilities. Automatic LNA/PPA setup switching, multiple die testing, automatic RF generators calibration, temperature control, automatic report generation, traceability, large modularity, enhanced accuracy, multiple instruments choice, friendly interface, re use strategy are ones of the main features of this system. Using this solution, the measured improvement in terms of characterization time is a factor of 5 (Noise Figure measurements), 8 (Adjacent Power Channel Ratio measurements), 16 (S-Parameters measurements), 32 (Intermodulation measurements). Increasing traceability, avoiding errors and inaccuracies, the quality of the results has been deeply increased by the way. In the future, this system will be extended to other types of RF/PLL/mixed measurements to provide complete characterization solutions in a wide spectrum of applications.