MEASUREMENT

IVCAD offers a modern and efficient methodology for load pull measurements. Low-loss couplers are placed between the tuners and DUT of the load pull setup, instead of the traditional placement behind the tuners. The couplers are connected to a vector receiver (such as a VNA) and allow the a- and b-waves to be measured at the DUT reference plane in real-time, presenting vector information not normally made available. IVCAD measures the actual impedances presented to the DUT without any assumptions of pre-characterized tuner positioning or losses. The delivered input power is derived from the a- and b-waves with extreme accuracy, which results in properly-defined power added efficiency. Output powers at each frequency, fundamental and multiple harmonics, are made available, as our multi-tone carrier and intermodulation powers. Time-domain NVNA measurements are simple with appropriate hardware (Agilent PNA-X or VTD SWAP).

IVCAD is compatible with Maury Microwave and Focus Microwaves tuners.

VISUALIZATION

IVCAD offers a modern and intuitive visualization package for IV, S-Parameters and Load Pull data.

• S-parameters can be viewed in standard and custom formats
• Stability circles are optionally plotted on source and load
• Basic load pull visualization allows the plotting of power sweeps or impedance curves with capability of filtering measurement results.
• Extended load pull visualization plots power sweeps and impedance contours simultaneously, where contours are redrawn as the user-defined input/output/source power is changed. Multiple parameters, including frequency, can be viewed on the same Smith Chart. Graphing can be performed in 2D or 3D.
• Advanced filtering allows multiple definitions to be entered in order to limit the measured impedances to those that meet specific criteria.

Visualization is compatible with Maury Microwave and Focus Microwaves data formats.

SOURCE PULL CONVERTER

• Because the a- and b-waves of the DUT are measured at the DUT reference plane, it is possible to measure the large signal input impedance of the device. With this information and through a patent-pending technique, IVCAD is able to simulate the effect of matching the source of the device, without having ever varied the source impedance. This "virtual source matching" is highly reliable at even extremely mismatched conditions, and allows for simulated source contours to be drawn. Trade-offs between maximum gain, efficiency and other parameters can be viewed in real-time without multiple source-load measurement iterations.