An extension to wider frequency band of a frequency and time analysis method to extract noise parameters

Abstract

An on-wafer noise parameter measurement method has been developed on a 2.8-18 GHz frequency band. The test bench mainly consists of a probe station, a vector network analyzer and a noise figure meter (NFM). Five noise power measurements and a time- and frequency-domain analysis are used to extract the bench and the device under test (DUT) characterisitics. The method is fitting for any DUT with no assumption on its characteristics and without an impedance-tuner. The aim of this study is to extend the method to a wider frequency band. The main problem is due to the change in the frequency band of the NFM and consists in the incompatibility of the use of direct and inverse Fourier transforms with discontinued characteristics. Discontinuities might provide parasitic additionnal terms, which could invalidate the method. Only a finer analysis of the method can conclude to its accuracy, depending on the kind of discontinuities. In the 0.1-18 GHz frequency band, only our receiver characterics present discontinuities at 1.6 GHz and 2.4 GHz. The problem is easily summarized to the discontinuities of the intercorrelation power sources terms. A deepen study concludes on the effects of these discontinuities and allows an increase of the frequency band. Experimental results on an active two-port are given.