Tektronix, Inc. has announced a new high-performance DC to 8 GHz real-time spectrum analyzer providing 36 MHz wide real-time triggering and capture capabilities, and enhanced resolution yielding a 2000-fold improvement in the analysis of power and frequency changes over time. With the RSA3408A, engineers will be able to view RF signal instabilities and transients that they never knew existed, according to the developer.

Market technology trends including the propagation of RF devices in consumer and industrial applications, such as RFID tags for inventory control, keyless entry and satellite radio systems for cars, wireless game controllers, GPS receivers and wireless local-area networks (WLAN) are resulting in RF signals that are becoming increasingly complex and transient in nature, generating problems that are harder than ever to find and identify. RF signals carry complex modulation and change from one instant to the next, hopping frequencies, spiking briefly and then disappearing. These transient and time-varying transmission techniques help RF devices avoid interference, maximize peak power and often evade detection.

With the RSA3408A, users will be able to trigger on RF anomalies that can't be detected by other instruments, capture a truly seamless record of spans up to 36 MHz over a long period of time, and analyze time-correlated multidomain views of their signals. This seamless record of RF signal behavior over time provides the ability to fully analyze the RF signal simultaneously in the time, frequency and modulation domains.

The RSA3408A is the only analyzer that can offer a 36 MHz bandwidth frequency mask trigger (FMT), finding interfering and transient signals that no other instrument can, ensuring that potential systems instabilities are eliminated from the design before they can cause a problem. By displaying a seamless record of frequency and power changes over time, the RSA3408A can solve many transient problems ranging from modulation switching on software-defined radio systems to identification of rogue pulses in RADAR transmission to dynamic modulation changes during a WLAN transmission.

Other features include up to 20 ns resolution Spectrogram. The built-in 802.11a/b/g application provides robust analysis of WLAN modules and systems, high 3G measurement versatility with W-CDMA, CDMA2000, 1X EVDO, HSDPA, TD-SCDMA RF and modulation analysis, comprehensive pulsed RF signal characterization suite, and general-purpose digital modulation analysis.