Aeroflex Incoporated, a wholly owned subsidiary of Aeroflex Holding Corp. (NYSE:ARX), announced today the availability of the 7700 integrated microwave test system. The 7700 is the market’s most complete turnkey ATE (Automated Test Equipment) system-in-a-box designed for rapid production testing of microwave and RF components and modules. The 7700 is a bench-sized instrument that utilizes Aeroflex’s synthetic architecture and Common Platform hardware to achieve fast measurement throughput.

“The 7700 is designed to reduce the cost of production test by eliminating multiple test instruments, ATE development cost, and ongoing maintenance. Over time, configuration, software, and maintenance costs are usually much greater than the initial hardware investment,” said Keith Andrews, product manager for synthetic instruments, Aeroflex.

Compact Measurement Suite is Easily Configured to Test New Devices

The 7700 Integrated Microwave Test System is a complete ATE system within the footprint of a bench instrument. The Aeroflex Measurement Console Test Executive controls all aspects of the production test process, including the DUT (Device Under Test), remote switching hardware, thermal chambers, and more. Using production test sequences provided by the base model, the 7700 provides the functionality and measurements of a vector signal generator, spectrum analyzer, vector network analyzer, oscilloscope, power meter, frequency counter, noise figure meter, and a phase noise analyzer. The 7700’s tight coupling of signal generation, measurements, and DUT control increases measurement throughput significantly over traditional rack-mounted ATE systems.

“Customers achieved up to 4X faster throughput using Aeroflex synthetic instruments. We’ve spent many years perfecting our architecture and unique test executive to save customers hundreds of hours writing software and configuring ATE systems,” said Andrews. “The 7700 is quickly configured and redeployed. There’s no need to build a new test system for each new DUT. Customers can test an L-band component in the morning and an S-band module the same afternoon.”

Key specifications

The 7700 Integrated Microwave Test System has a frequency range of 1 MHz to 6 GHz, with options up to 32 GHz. It includes a complete measurement suite including S-parameters for full characterization of devices such as low noise amplifiers (LNA), variable crystal oscillators (VCO), and transceiver modules.

Key specifications of the 7700 include:

• RF modulation bandwidth: 90 MHz
• Frequency switching times: <1 ms
• Phase noise (2 GHz, 20 kHz offset): -115 dBm
• Residual noise floor: <-120 dBm
• Dynamic range: >100 dB