Agilent Technologies’ NVNA and X-parameters

Agilent Technologies’ NVNA and X-parameters

In 2005, Agilent’s Loren Betts and David Root decided it was time to present a joint proposal to Bob McClung, then General Manager and Vice President of Agilent Technologies’ Component Test Division (CTD). The two-man team wanted to develop a vector network analyzer (VNA) for the commercial market that would be based on a fundamental breakthrough in engineering mathematics: a superset of S-parameters that took into account the nonlinear as well as linear performance attributes of electronic components.

The collaborative effort would involve not one but three Agilent divisions: CTD, the High-Frequency Technology Center (HFTC), and EEsof EDA. But the timing was right due to a recent confluence of events:

• A new VNA platform released by CTD, the PNA-X, contained the hardware capability and application-software infrastructure needed, A key high-performance phase reference IC created with a proprietary HFTC InP semiconductor technology had just become available.

HFTC had been developing and incubating the essential prototypes of a PNA-based nonlinear VNA (NVNA) and the S-parameters superset (which was to become known as X-parameters) since 2004, thereby demonstrating the complete cycle from nonlinear measurement to design. The project would be built on this, while leveraging work done at Agilent’s parent company, Hewlett-Packard, since the late 1980s.

Once the proposal was green-lighted, a multi-divisional effort was launched, led for the first year by Betts and Root. They chartered an interdivisional-team consisting of individuals with unique skills in measurements, modeling, software, applications, and marketing. High-energy, self-motivated, highly technical, and entrepreneurial, the individuals who made up the team shared a common vision of what the NVNA should be.

It was good that they did, because the project, known internally as “Kilauea”, was on a fast-paced, streamlined, one-year development cycle starting in the spring 2007. The extended core team (including those contributing since 2004) consisted of Jan Verpsecht, Jonathan Scott, Daniel Gunyan, Peter Blockley, Jason Horn, Chad Gillease, Yee-Ping Teoh, Yu-Chen Hu, and Radek Biernacki. Sponsorship by Agilent business leaders and executives was also critical in getting products to market.

Since products began shipping in April 2008, the NVNA and X-parameters continued to be developed and enhanced, and with colleges and industry-leading companies embracing them, their future looks very bright!

Richard Comerford