Engineering Development/Design Tool of the Year

Product Name: S8714A UXM 5G RF Application

Company: Keysight Technologies

Entry Statement

Fifth-generation new radio (5G NR) is a complex technology, but one that is essential to support the growth of wireless communications. Performing the necessary radio frequency (RF) measurements for new 5G devices requires deep knowledge of the 5G NR protocol, and complexity only continues to increase. The third-generation partnership project (3GPP) adds more test cases and test configurations with each new release increasing the difficulty of performing measurements correctly according to the procedures. At the same time, time-to-market pressure in the wireless communications industry is high, requiring faster test development and performance verification while meeting specifications.

Keysight’s S8714A UXM 5G RF Application is a solution to these challenges. Designed for RF testing, its intelligent signaling reduces the need for protocol expertise and its superior usability makes test development and execution quick and easy.

The S8714A UXM 5G RF Application is an easy-to-use and fast solution for RF testing with a simple UI, quickly selectable measurements, easily viewable results from multiple measurements, and automatic procedures for common protocol use cases such as blind handovers, paging, and authentication. Useful for hardware integration, performance optimization, regression and design verification testing, and repair, the RF-focused UI makes manual and automated testing intuitive and efficient.

With this application, wireless engineers can easily verify the RF performance of 5G NR nonstandalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) devices with built-in 3GPP test cases. They can simply select the test from the drop-down menu and the RF application automatically configures the parameters according to 3GPP test specifications and starts the measurement. This helps save test development time since understanding the 3GPP specifications in detail is not necessary.

The S8714A UXM 5G RF Application can also be used to quickly modify parameters essential for RF testing such as channel, band, and bandwidth. Users specify the desired channel as low, medium, or high for automatic selection of ARFCN according to the 3GPP specifications. Optionally, they can enter frequency or ARFCN for the channel to be tested. Changing channel, band, and bandwidth is as easy as entering a new value from the main screen – the change is made automatically with the RF application’s intelligent signaling. Multiple parameters can be changed simultaneously by configuring a single blind handover.

The software application also enables users to speed up RF verification of 5G NR devices by viewing the results of multiple measurements simultaneously, while the fast, embedded measurement engine reduces measurement time. The simple SCPI of the S8704A RF Application allows automated tests to be developed quickly.

Optimized for speed, the S8714A UXM 5G RF application is designed for RF testing with intelligent signaling and greater usability in mind. This is an essential software solution for 5G engineers to verify the RF performance of their devices, and significantly reduce time to market for these devices.