Vicom Resources - Application Notes, eGuides & Tech Briefs

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 1. Oscilloscopes

APPLICATION NOTE: How to Transition Code to TSP from SCPI

Many engineers are surprised to learn that an oscilloscope is extremely capable of troubleshooting EMI, not just in the time domain, but also the frequency domLearn about an alternative to Standard Commands for Programmable Instrumentation (SCPI) provided across a number of

Keithley instruments such as the SMU (Source Measure Units) and the DMM. This application note offers an in-depth comparison of SCPI and Keithley’s Test Script Processor (TSP®) command set and scripting language for a handy reference for novice and experienced test programmer alike.

Tektronix, March 2021

APPLICATION NOTE: Troubleshooting ESD Failures Using an Oscilloscope

This Application Note is intended to help designers learn troubleshooting techniques for ESD compliance failures. It covers some basic theory on ESD, describes a basic testing system for ESD troubleshooting, including an H-field probe, oscilloscope and ESD simulator and explains how to make measurements and trace ESD current paths in a device under test.

Tektronix, November 2020

APPLICATION NOTE: Step by Step EMI Troubleshooting with 4, 5 and 6 Series MSO Oscilloscopes

Many engineers are surprised to learn that an oscilloscope is extremely capable of troubleshooting EMI, not just in the time domain, but also the frequency domain too. The app note explains specifically how to use Tektronix 4/5/6 Series MSOs with built-in digital downconverters and Spectrum View. This patented technology enables you to simultaneously view both analog and spectral views of all your analog signals, with independent controls in each domain

Tektronix, August 2020

APPLICATION NOTE: Verifying ESD Simulator Performance Using an Oscilloscope

Tektronix, June 2020

APPLICATION NOTE: EMI Troubleshooting with the Latest-Generation Oscilloscopes

EMI/EMC regulations help to ensure reliable operation and safety for users of electrical and electronic equipment. Regulations limit the allowable radiated emissions, and to keep their products within these limits, designers invest significant time and effort. This application note describes techniques that may be used to determine the source of unwanted emissions, especially after an out-of-limits condition has been identified through formal testing or pre-compliance testing.

Tektronix, April 2020

APPLICATION NOTE: Measuring Power Supply Switching Loss with an Oscilloscope

Losses due to dissipation in switching devices such as MOSFET's and IGBT's contribute significantly to the overall losses in switch mode power supplies. This application note explains how to measure switching loss and conduction loss in power supply switches using an oscilloscope equipped with a current probe and differential voltage probe. It covers both manual and automated techniques, along with guidance on making connections.

Tektronix, September 2019

APPLICATION NOTE: Physical Layer Compliance Testing for 1000BASE-T Ethernet

Engineers designing or validating the 1000BASE-T Ethernet physical layer on their products need to perform a wide range of tests, quickly, reliably and efficiently. This application note describes the tests that ensure validation, the challenges faced while testing multi-level signals, and how oscilloscope-resident test software enables significant efficiency improvements with its wide range of tests, including return loss, fast validation cycles, and high reliability.

Tektronix, September 2019

APPLICATION NOTE: Troubleshooting Ethernet Problems with your Oscilloscope

Learn the basics of the 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX Ethernet physical layers to help you troubleshoot bus problems or related system issues. Learn how to set up and interpret the results when using automated decoding, triggering, and search on an oscilloscope equipped with Ethernet analysis capability.

Tektronix, June 2019

APPLICATION NOTE: Spectrum View - A New Approach to Frequency Domain Analysis on Oscilloscopes

Debugging embedded systems often involves looking for clues that are hard to discover just by looking at one domain at a time. The ability to look at time and frequency domains simultaneously can offer important insights. To address this need, the 4, 5 and 6 Series MSO mixed signal oscilloscopes offer an analysis tool called Spectrum View.

Tektronix, May 2019

APPLICATION NOTE: Power Supply Measurement Using the 4-5-6-PWR Application

This application note gives an overview of how to make important power supply measurements using a Tektronix 4, 5 or 6 Series MSO oscilloscope with 4-PWR-BAS, 5-PWR, or 6-PWR power analysis software. The 4 Series with 4-PWR-BAS software operates identically to the others. However, it supports basic measurements and does not support magnetics or frequency response analysis measurements.

Tektronix, May 2019

APPLICATION NOTE: How to Minimise Probe Loading With Low Capacitance Probes

This application note describes how the high-bandwidth, low-capacitance passive voltage probes from Tektronix reduce the oscilloscope user's total cost of ownership, improve performance and measurement accuracy, and save the user setup time.

Tektronix, May 2019

APPLICATION NOTE: Getting Started with Power Rail Measurements

Most of today’s electronic designs require many different supply voltages to function properly. Performing DC power rail measurements is becoming increasingly difficult so how does one ensure that each part of the system gets the correct power to meet its needs? This Tektronix App Note is a good way to get started!

Tektronix, May 2019

 2. Signal Sources & Analysers

APPLICATION NOTE: Double Pulse Test with the Tektronix AFG31000 Arbitrary Function Generator

Semiconductor materials used in power electronics are transitioning from silicon to wide bandgap semiconductors such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) due to their superior performance in automotive and industrial applications. However, minimizing switch losses continues to be a major challenge for power device engineers. These designs must be rigorously measured to ensure compliance.

Double Pulse Testing is the standard method for measuring the switching parameters of MOSFETs or IGBT power devices.

Tektronix, September 2019

APPLICATION NOTE: Detecting Drones Using a RTSA

In situations where a drone is operating where it shouldn’t, the potential ramifications can be catastrophic. As a result, organizations need real-time, accurate, simple to operate and cost-effective solutions for detecting drones flying in or near restricted airspace. In this application note, Tektronix discusses considerations when looking for a drone detection solution.

Tektronix, June 2019

APPLICATION NOTE: Programmatic Control on Tektronix USB Real Time Spectrum Analyzers

This application note explains the programmatic interfaces and environments available for Tektronix RSA USB spectrum analyzers and provide recommendations and examples for your applications.

Tektronix, August 2018

 APPLICATION NOTE: Overcoming Receiver Test Challenges in Gen4 I/O Applications

The TTR500A Series VNA includes an impressive array of technological and patented advances that allow it to bend many of the traditional trade-offs between RF performance, size, reliability, and cost.

Tektronix, January 2017

 APPLICATION NOTE: Cable and Antenna Measurements Using Tektronix USB Spectrum Analyzers

In this document, some important features enabling the AWG5200 series for direct RF complex signal generation are presented followed by a discussion on two architectural techniques that can be implemented externally to further expand the frequency coverage of the instrument with a focus on reducing cost and complexity for multi-channel applications.

Tektronix, November 2016

 APPLICATION NOTE: Low Cost EMI Pre-compliance Testing using a Spectrum Analyzer

This application note describes how you can use a general-purpose spectrum analyzer to perform EMI pre-compliance checks for radiated emissions and conducted emissions, to help identify major issues before sending your design to a compliance lab.

Tektronix, January 2016

 3. Electrical Measurements

APPLICATION NOTE: Measuring the Control Loop Response of a Power Supply Using an Oscilloscope

Most power supplies and regulators are designed to maintain a constant voltage over a specified current range. They are essentially amplifiers with a closed feedback loop. Control loop measurements help to characterize how a power supply responds to changes in output load conditions. Using an oscilloscope, signal source and automation software, measurements can be made quickly and presented as familiar Bode plots. This application note uses a 5 Series MSO oscilloscope with Option 5-PWR Advanced Power Measurement and Analysis to demonstrate the principles of Bode Plots. The 4 Series MSO and 6 Series MSO have similar power analysis options with similar capabilities.

Tektronix, March 2021

APPLICATION NOTE: Testing Laser Diode Modules and VCSELs with the 2601B-PULSE System SourceMeter® Instrument and KickStart Instrument Control Software

Laser diodes (LDs) and VCSELs (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers) are the primary components used in optical communications, spectroscopy, 3D sensing and imaging, and a host of other important applications. As the demand for these applications grows, so does the need for the basic components themselves. This demand requires greater emphasis on developing accurate, cost-effective test strategies.

Tektronix, April 2020

APPLICATION NOTE: Generating Clean 10 µs Pulses with the 2601B-PULSE System SourceMeter® Instrument

Outputting high quality current pulses for characterizing VCSELs for LIDAR or other optoelectronic devices poses many challenges. Read this application note to learn how you can easily source current pulses as short as 10 μs and minimize device self-heating at up to 10 A and 10 V - without the need to manually tune the output to match device impedance up to 3 µH.

Tektronix, April 2020

TECHNICAL BRIEF: Evolving Materials and Testing for Emerging Generations of Power Electronics Design

Transitioning from silicon to wide bandgap semiconductors such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride means that power module designs can be physically smaller than what came before, while also increasing MOSFET switching speed and energy efficiency. As competitive pressures make these design parameters more critical, design engineers must reevaluate their approaches to validation and testing.

Tektronix, May 2019

APPLICATION NOTE: Making Stable Low Current Measurements with High Test Connection Capacitance Using the 4201-SMU and 4211-SMU

This application note explains the maximum capacitance specifications of an SMU, and describes several applications on which the 4201-SMU and 4211-SMU enables you to make stable low current measurements. The example applications describe include the following: OLED pixel device testing on a flat panel display, transfer characteristics of a MOSFET using long cables, FET testing through a switch matrix, nano-FET I-V measurements on a chuck, and capacitor leakage measurements. Details on calculating test system capacitance is also provided in this application note.

Tektronix, Feb 2018

eGUIDE: Simplifying MOSFET and MOSCAP Device Characterisation

This e-guide answers some common questions about making better semiconductor measurements, with a focus on DC I-V and capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements. It also touches on more specific applications and how you can simplify making the measurements your most challenging applications require.

Tektronix, June 2017

 4. Wireline Networks Construction & Test

APPLICATION NOTE: Data Center Interconnect - Getting the Most Out of 16 QAM

Internet Content Providers (ICPs) are currently in hyper-growth mode to keep up with demand for social media applications and cloud computing. This growth has pushed ICPs to add storage and transport capacity at an unprecedented rate. One area of expansion is Data Center Interconnects (DCIs) that connect their data centers around the world

VIAVI Solutions, 2020

APPLICATION NOTE: Use Case: Testing MPO Networks

As the use of Multi-Fiber connectors such as MPO continues to grow, technicians that have traditionally worked with single fiber or duplex connectors (such as SC or LC) are overwhelmed with the testing challenges unique to MPO. While the tests they need to perform are the same (i.e. measure length and optical loss, check polarity, ensure end face condition), MPO connectors have several attributes that are more complex than a standard duplex link with LC or SC connectors. As a result, the testing process for MPO connections becomes much more time consuming and complex.

VIAVI Solutions, 2018

APPLICATION NOTE: The Impact of Sampling Resolution on OTDR Testing

Sampling resolution not only influences distance accuracy, it also impacts other parameters, such as acquisition time, distance measurement range, and dynamic range. Therefore, take care when modifying this parameter. This paper describes the impact of sampling resolution on OTDR measurements.

VIAVI Solutions, 2010

 5. Mobile Networks Construction & Test

APPLICATION NOTE: CellAdvisor 5G 5G Non-Standalone Analyzer Concurrent Multicarrier Radio Assessment

The VIAVI CellAdvisor™ 5G is the ideal field test solution for 4G and 5G radio access networks. It performs signal analysis tests for each technology, as stand-alone LTE or 5G; and it offers the capability to perform concurrent LTE and 5G signal analysis as non-standalone (NSA) signal analysis.

VIAVI Solutions, 2020

APPLICATION NOTE: Test Guide to 5G Network Deployment

As 5G moves from the lab to the field, field engineers, technicians and installers are grappling with the many challenges of ensuring a successful deployment. Validating 5G in the lab is one thing, but scaling it to the field requires robust, efficient, and scalable 5G test and verification solutions. VIAVI is pleased to offer an indispensable resource, Test Guide to 5G Network Deployment, to simplify deployment complexities with easy-to-use fiber, x-haul and RF solutions.

VIAVI Solutions, 2019