MT930B1 IVCAD Basic Visualization and and MT930B2 IVCAD Advanced Visualization Add-On

MT930B1 IVCAD Basic Visualization

IVCAD advanced measurement and modeling software, offered by Maury Microwave and AMCAD Engineering offers a modern and intuitive basic visualization package for IV, S-Parameters and Load Pull data.

Basic I(V) Viewer plots IV curves of Vd, Vg, Id and Ig
IV Trace Viewer
Basic S Parameter Viewer plots S-parameters in standard and custom formats including log magnitude, linear magnitude, phase, polar, Smith Chart
Basic Load Pull Viewer plots impedance sweeps and power sweeps with advanced filtering capabilities
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.

Dockable windows allow users to create and save custom IVCAD environments. Templates allow users to save their preferred visualization graphs and recall or share with colleagues. Data Editor allows users to create new parameters based on equations and visualize alongside measurement data. Export allows users to save graphs and plots as JPG or PDF files for reporting. Visualization is compatible with Maury Microwave and common commercial data formats.

Simultaneous visualization of multiple files and formats

MT930B2 IVCAD Advanced Visualization Add-On

MT930B2 is an add-on module for MT930B1 which enables advanced visualization capabilities including:

Extended IV Viewer
I(V) Wafer Mapping
S parameter stability analysis
Extended Load Pull Viewer
Load Pull time domain visualization
Magic Source Pull

Extended IV Viewer – enables users to visualize a transistor's pulsed IV characteristics versus time. This is useful in observing dynamic self-heating in the saturated region while moving different time markers. A second use is to determine the ideal measurement windows, i.e. the steady-state measurement area, so that the measurement data is not recorded in an area of overshoot or ringing. This is critical in defining the minimum pulse width for any given measurement, since the ideal value is tied to transistor size, bias tees, cables, etc, and can only be determined by visualizing the shape of the pulse over time.

I(V) Wafer Mapping – makes use of IVCAD’s automated probe station control for step-and- repeat IV measurements and plots critical IV characteristics as a function of transistor over the wafer. DC Gm and Gd characteristics can be dynamically observed, as well as Gate Lag and Drain Lag over the wafer.

Wafer mapping of IV measurements

S-parameter stability analysis – allows users to visualize source and load stability circles extracted from linear S parameter measurements. Constant available gain and operating gain circles are also plotted and updated in real-time as a function of frequency.

S-parameter stability analysis

Extended Load Pull viewer – enables users to dynamically plot XY graphs and Smith Chart contours based on a dependency variable, such as input power, output power, gain compression, efficiency or EVM. The viewer links two independent plots, such that the first plot is used to determine the dependency value, while the second plot is automatically updated as a function of the dependency value, and can be customized on the fly. Extended Load Pull viewer is invaluable when sorting through large sets of measurement data, such as nested measurements (i.e. load pull over a region of the Smith Chart, while sweeping power at each load).

Extended load pull viewer

Load Pull Time Domain visualization – enables the plotting of voltage and current waveforms and load lines measured using the MT930G IVCAD Time-Domain Waveforms add-on module for MT930C IVCAD Vector- Receiver Load Pull. In addition, linear models extracted using MT930M1 IVCAD Linear Model Extraction can be used to de-embed the time-domain waveforms to the intrinsic transistor reference plane, and intrinsic RF load lines can be superimposed with Pulsed IV plots to give valued information regarding high efficiency operating classes (i.e. Class F, Inverse Class F…). Markers can be placed at different powers to visualize the effects of gain compressions on load line saturation.

Load Pull Time Domain visualization

Magic Source Pull (Source Pull Converter) – Large signal input impedance can be found by measuring DUT a- and b-waves at the DUT reference plane. A patented technique simulates source matching, without varying the source impedance. Even under extremely mismatched conditions this “virtual source matching” is highly reliable, provided the DUT is sufficiently unilateral (S21~ >S12+50dB). Simulated source contours are drawn, and trade-offs between maximum gain, efficiency and other parameters can be viewed in real-time without multiple source-load measurement iterations. Direct computation of the input VSWR versus source power and source impedance is also enabled.

Magic Source Pull (Source Pull Converter)

Tour IVCAD Software Suite

IVCAD advanced measurement and modeling software, offered by Maury Microwave and AMCAD Engineering supports multiple load pull techniques including traditional load pull using external instrumentation, VNA-based load pull, active load pull and hybrid load pull. It performs DC-IV and pulsed-IV measurements and incorporates device modeling tools. Its modern visualization capabilities give users a greater ability to view, plot and graph measurement data in an intuitive manner.