R&S®FSPN Phase noise analyzer and VCO tester

Key facts

• Pure phase noise analyzer and VCO tester with high measurement speed
• Simultaneous measurement of phase noise and amplitude noise
• Frequency range from 1 MHz to 50 GHz
• Extremely low‑noise internal DC sources for automatic VCO characterization
• Automatic SCPI recording and 100% compatible with R&S®FSWP

Increased efficiency and reproducibility, from lab to production

The R&S®FSPN phase noise analyzer and VCO tester is very sensitive with high measurement speeds for characterizing sources such as synthesizers, VCOs, OCXOs and DROs. It is ideal for demanding phase noise and VCO analysis in development and production . Equipped with two low phase noise synthesizers and a real-time cross correlation engine for increased measurement sensitivity, just a few correlations are needed to measure very high-quality oscillators, synthesizers or VCOs in production. Increase the number of correlations to characterize the most sensitive commercially available synthesizers and oscillators in R&D.

Measurement speed taken to its limit

Speed up the development of your device

Signal sources can be developed and optimized faster with an instrument that delivers results with short measurement times. The R&S®FSPN takes just a few seconds to display the phase noise trace of high-end sources such as OCXOs or DROs.

Phase noise measurements with high sensitivity

Real-time cross-correlation for improved phase noise sensitivity

The R&S®FSPN includes real-time cross-correlation to measure sources with very low phase noise. The sensitivity improvement depends on the number of cross correlations performed, as follows:

• ΔL: improvement in phase noise sensitivity in dB,
• n: number of cross-correlations

The very low synthesizer phase noise in the R&S®FSPN reduces the number of necessary correlations, shortening the measurement time.

Fastest VCO characterization

Thanks to its extremely low-noise internal DC sources, the R&S®FSPN can measure the phase noise of voltage-controlled oscillators (VCO) at various tuning and supply voltages. Quíck VCO characterization varying tuning voltage or the supply voltage is possible. The following parameters are delivered instantaneously:

• Frequency versus voltage
• Sensitivity versus voltage
• Output power versus voltage
• Current drain versus voltage
• Output power versus frequency

Transient response analysis

Frequency and phase measurements in time domain

The R&S®FSPN has up to 8 GHz bandwidth for detailed synthesizer characterization, including measurements of settling times after frequency hops, ramps, switching times etc. The R&S®FSPN has narrowband analysis down to 40 MHz for narrowband characterization when analyzing transient PLL responses in detail.

The display has a persistence mode for all traces, making it easy to estimate the intensity of the parameter scatter or the presence of any outliers.

SCPI recording

SCPI recording makes it easy to move from manual operation to automated test sequencing. Just operate the instrument and export the automatically created scripts in different languages such as Matlab®, Python or C# to replicate the manual measurements.