A new test solution for 5G base station manufacturing should speed up the testing of new 5G New Radio (NR) infrastructure equipment, and therefore accelerate 5G deployment.
Keysight Technologies has announced a 5G base station manufacturing test solution dubbed the Keysight S9100A 5G Multi-Band Vector Transceiver. It will allow manufacturers to test 5G New Radio (NR) network equipment and radio components at scale to support volume manufacturing. It will work across 5G NR base station transceiver systems as well as components including remote radio heads, distributed units, active antenna arrays, amplifiers and chipsets.
The S9100A has a modular architecture and uses hardware and software platforms that support the 3GPP 5G NR Release 15.2.0 standards. It employs the Keysight PathWave design and test software platform that it designed to accelerate product development workflow from concept through to manufacturing and deployment. It also incorporates Keysight’s new PIXie vector transceiver (VXT), known as Keysight M9410A, a purpose built solution for rapid manufacturing test of wireless components, power amplifiers and RF front-end modules.
It’s a compact, streamlined measurement system that enables automated testing of 5G NR equipment with a single configuration that is easily scalable across both sub-6GHz and mmWave frequency bands, in both over-the-air (OTA) and test environments. Keysight claims this lowers the cost of testing and will speed up the process from validating complex 5G designs, through integration and verification, to volume manufacturing. Calibrated system accuracy reduces the number of false results.
“The introduction of Keysight's 5G base station manufacturing test solution enables network equipment manufacturers around the world to ramp up 5G manufacturing,” said Giampaolo Tardioli, vice president of Keysight's Network Access group. “The scalability across sub-6GHz and mmWave frequencies, compact design and superior RF performance of the S9100A, offer users a clear and rapid path from design validation to volume manufacturing.”
Based in California, Keysight is a large and well respected manufacturer of design and test solutions for the communications and electronics industries, and claims to have the world’s first end-to-end design and test solutions for 5G. The addition of a testing solution for 5G NR base station equipment should enable manufacturers to quickly and cost-effectively bring 5G NR equipment through the design process to manufacturing at scale and therefore speed up 5G deployment. It’s a welcome step forward on the road to 5G.
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Sacha has more than 20 years’ experience researching and writing about enterprise tech, telecoms, data centres, cloud and IoT. She is a researcher, writer and analyst, and a regular contributor to 5G.co.uk writing guides and articles on all aspects of 5G.
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