PRODUCT FLYERPXI Vector Signal Analyzers
CONTENTSPXI RF Vector Signal Analyzers
Detail View of PXIe-5668 Vector Signal Analyzer
Key Features
NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel
NI-RFmx Application Programming Interface (API)
Platform-Based Approach to Test and Measurement
PXI Instrumentation
Hardware Services

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PXI Vector Signal Analyzers
PXI-5661, PXIe-5663E, PXIe-5665, PXIe-5667, and PXIe-5668• Software: Includes interactive soft
front panel, API support for LabVIEWand text-based languages, shipping
examples, and detailed help files• Up to 765 MHz of instantaneousbandwidth• Current measurements up to 3 A• Best-in-class dynamic range, noisefloor, and phase noise• Support for wireless standards
including 802.11ax and LTEAdvanced• LabVIEW-programmable FPGA

Built for Automated Test and Measurement

PXI Vector Signal Analyzers (VSAs) feature a wide frequency range, real-time signal analysis, andadvanced signal processing. These instruments can perform measurements for a broad range of wirelesstechnologies such as GSM, EDGE, WCDMA, LTE-Advance Pro, 5G, Wireless LAN, and Bluetooth. Selectmodels also feature a LabVIEW-programmable FPGA that you can customize for advanced
measurement applications. PXI VSAs are ideal for microwave test, wireless test, RADAR test, spectral
monitoring, software-defined radio (SDR), radio monitoring, interference detection, signals intelligence,and other applications.
NI’s VSA portfolio is highlighted by the PXIe-5668, which offers up to 765 MHz of instantaneous
bandwidth with industry-leading dynamic range, and best-in-class measurement performance and speed.

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Table 1. NI offers RF Vector Signal Analyzers ranging from 20 MHz to 765 MHz Bandwidth
PXI-5661

PXIe-5663

PXIe-5665

PXIe-5667

PXI-5668

9 kHz to 2.7 GHz

10 MHz to 6.6
GHz

20 Hz to3.6 GHz / 14 GHz

20 Hz to3.6 GHz / 7 GHz

20 Hz to 26.5 GHz

20 MHz50 MHz

25 MHz or 50 MHz

25 MHz or 50 MHz

Up to 765 MHz

Phase Noise (10 kHzoffset) at 1 GHz-90 dBc/Hz-105 dBc/Hz-129 dBc/Hz*-126 dBc/Hz*-129 dBc/Hz

Absolute Amplitude
Accuracy±0.6 dB±0.65 dB

± 0.1 dB

± 0.1 dB

± 0.2 dB

Average Noise Floor-122 dBm/Hz-158 dBm/Hz-165 dBm/Hz-165 dBm/Hz-167 dBm/HzArchitecture

Multi-Stage

Single-Stage

Multi-Stage

Multi-Stage

Multi-Stage

List Mode

N/A

●

●

●

●

Peer-to-Peer Streaming

N/A

●

●

●

●Slots33

5 to 777Frequency Range

Bandwidth

Detailed View of PXIe-5668 Vector Signal Analyzer

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Key Features
Excellent RF Measurement Performance

NI VSAs feature a unique combination of low phase noise and noise floor, high second- and third-orderintercepts, and excellent dynamic range, making them well suited for applications ranging from adjacentchannel leakage ratio (ACLR) measurements to spurs and harmonics measurements. In Figure 1, thedynamic range chart illustrates both noise and linearity as a function of mixer level for the PXIe-5668
VSA.

Figure 1. PXIe-5668 dynamic range chart at 20 GHz

The excellent dynamic range performance of the PXIe-5668 gives it the ability to accurately performmeasurements ranging from intermodulation distortion (IMD) to adjacent channel power (ACP) to error
vector magnitude (EVM). In addition to cost-effective R&D-grade analog and RF/microwave
performance, NI VSAs offer an industry-leading measurement speed with NI-RFmx software, allowing you
to perform spectrum and demodulation measurements 3x to 10x faster than traditional instruments.

Wide Instantaneous Bandwidth

The ability to measure extremely wide bandwidths in a single acquisition is useful for applications ranging
from EVM measurements of wideband wireless signals such as 802.11ax to radar pulse measurementsof narrow pulses. Leveraging fast sampling, high-linearity ADCs, and wide-band internal calibration
mechanisms, the NI VSAs offer 25 MHz, 50 MHz, 320 MHz and 765 MHz of instantaneous RF bandwidthwith excellent measurement accuracy, as shown in Figure 2. The wide instantaneous bandwidth also
allows faster spectrum measurements in scenarios in which the span is smaller than the instantaneous
bandwidth of the instrument.

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Figure 2. Available instantaneous RF bandwidth for NI VSAs

FlexibilityAnother key attribute of the NI VSA is the flexibility with which you can reconfigure it, embedding custom
signal processing algorithms on the instrument itself. For example, using LabVIEW FPGA example code,
you can configure PXIe-5668 VSA as a real-time spectrum analyzer (RTSA), as shown in Figure 3. With
the RTSA personality, you can analyze extremely wide bandwidths of spectrum in real time without gaps
in the time-domain record.

Figure 3. Front panel for LabVIEW-based RTSA application

Because of the modular architecture of NI VSAs, additional downconverter and digitizer modules support
multichannel receiver configurations. For example, the PXIe-5668 provides the ability to share the localoscillator (LO) and other timing signals across multiple modules and allows for phase-coherence between
each RF channel. The phase-coherence of multichannel receivers is important in applications ranging
from direction finding to beamforming and multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) device testing. Figure 4
shows an example configuration of a two-channel RF signal analyzer.

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Figure 4. Configuration of multiple PXIe-5668 instruments for multichannel, phase-coherent RF signal acquisition

NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel
The NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel helps you quickly view and analyze RF signals using PXI hardware fromNI. The soft front panel features built-in measurements such as third-order intercept (TOI),
complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF), adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR), occupied
bandwidth (OBW), channel power, and transmit power. With these one-button measurements, you canquickly measure, display, and store results, which makes NI PXI instruments ideal for characterizationand validation environments.

Figure 5. Users can configure the VSA for quick measurements using the NI-RFSA soft front panel; other interactive
examples are also available and act as soft front panels for different wireless standards.

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NI-RFmx Application Programming Interface (API)NI-RFmx provides an intuitive programming API that offers both ease of use and advanced measurement
configuration. It offers a highly-optimized API to perform tasks ranging from measurements on digital andanalog modulated signals to RF spectral measurements including channel power, adjacent channelpower, and power spectrum. It also allows users to automate their programs with accurate, highperformance standard-based measurements for LTE-A, WCDMA/HSPA+, GSM/EDGE, Bluetooth,Bluetooth LE and more. In addition to the support for cellular and general purpose measurements withRFmx, NI offers wireless test standards software for GPS/GNSS simulation and FM/RDS, and the WLAN
Test Toolkit gives you direct and fine control over the generation and analysis of IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
and ax signals, as well as 802.11j/p/ah/af waveforms, with industry-leading speed and accuracy.

Figure 6. Power spectrum measurements performed using NI RFmx in LabVIEW and C

Figure 6 illustrates a power spectrum measurement using an RFmx LabVIEW example with eight function
calls. Engineers can get started with one of more than 100 example programs in C, .NET, and LabVIEW
that are designed to make instrument automation straightforward.
The NI-RFmx API includes high-level parameters that intelligently optimize instrument settings to help you
achieve the highest quality measurement with the fewest software calls. Additionally, NI-RFmx has
features that vastly simplify the software complexity of multi-measurement parallelism and multi-DUT
measurements. The modular software architecture offers access to lower level NI-RFSA instrument- andapplication-specific functions that provide the ultimate balance of ease of use and test code flexibility. NIRFmx works with all NI software-designed VSTs and preserves the usage of NI-RFSA instrument driver
FPGA extensions, which are available only on LabVIEW FPGA-enabled products. As a result, users canachieve industry-leading measurement speeds using the latest processor technologies and easy-toprogram multithreaded measurements for test time reduction.

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Platform-Based Approach to Test andMeasurement
What Is PXI?

Powered by software, PXI is a rugged PC-based platform for measurement and automation systems. PXI
combines PCI electrical-bus features with the modular, Eurocard packaging of CompactPCI and thenadds specialized synchronization buses and key software features. PXI is both a high-performance andlow-cost deployment platform for applications such as manufacturing test, military and aerospace,machine monitoring, automotive, and industrial test. Developed in 1997 and launched in 1998, PXI is an
open industry standard governed by the PXI Systems Alliance (PXISA), a group of more than 70
companies chartered to promote the PXI standard, ensure interoperability, and maintain the PXIspecification.

Integrating the Latest Commercial Technology

By leveraging the latest commercial technology for our products, we can continually deliver highperformance and high-quality products to our users at a competitive price. The latest PCI Express Gen 3
switches deliver higher data throughput, the latest Intel multicore processors facilitate faster and more
efficient parallel (multisite) testing, the latest FPGAs from Xilinx help to push signal processing algorithms
to the edge to accelerate measurements, and the latest data converters from TI and ADI continually
increase the measurement range and performance of our instrumentation.

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PXI Instrumentation
NI offers more than 600 different PXI modules ranging from DC to mmWave. Because PXI is an open
industry standard, nearly 1,500 products are available from more than 70 different instrument vendors.
With standard processing and control functions designated to a controller, PXI instruments need tocontain only the actual instrumentation circuitry, which provides effective performance in a small footprint.
Combined with a chassis and controller, PXI systems feature high-throughput data movement using PCI
Express bus interfaces and sub-nanosecond synchronization with integrated timing and triggering.

Oscilloscopes

Digital Multimeters

Digital Instruments

Waveform Generators

Frequency Counters

Source Measure Units

Power Supplies & Loads

FlexRIO Custom
Instruments & Processing

Sample at speeds up to 12.5 GS/s
with 5 GHz of analog bandwidth,featuring numerous triggeringmodes and deep onboard memory

Perform characterization andproduction test of semiconductor
devices with timing sets and perchannel pin parametricmeasurement unit (PPMU)

Perform counter timer tasks suchas event counting and encoder
position, period, pulse, andfrequency measurements

Supply programmable DC power,with some modules including
isolated channels, output
disconnect functionality, and remotesense

Generate standard functions
including sine, square, triangle, andramp as well as user-defined,arbitrary waveforms

Combine high-precision source andmeasure capability with highchannel density, deterministic
hardware sequencing, andSourceAdapt transient optimization

Provide high-performance I/O andpowerful FPGAs for applications
that require more than standard
instruments can offer

Switches (Matrix & MUX)

Vector Signal Transceivers

GPIB, Serial, & Ethernet

Data Acquisition Modules

Feature a variety of relay types androw/column configurations tosimplify wiring in automated testsystems

Integrate non-PXI instruments intoa PXI system through various
instrument control interfaces

Page 9Perform voltage (up to 1000 V),
current (up to 3A), resistance,inductance, capacitance, andfrequency/period measurements, aswell as diode tests| ni.com | PXI Vector Signal Analyzers

Combine a vector signal generator
and vector signal analyzer withFPGA-based, real-time signal
processing and control

Provide a mix of analog I/O, digital
I/O, counter/timer, and trigger
functionality for measuring electricalor physical phenomena

Hardware Services
All NI hardware includes a one-year warranty for basic repair coverage, and calibration in adherence to NI
specifications prior to shipment. PXI systems also include basic assembly and a functional test. NI offers
additional entitlements to improve uptime and lower maintenance costs with service programs forhardware. Learn more at ni.com/services/hardware.

Standard

Premium

Description

Program Duration

3 or 5 years

3 or 5 years

Length of service program

Extended RepairCoverage●●

NI restores your device’s functionality and includes firmware updates andfactory calibration.

SystemConfiguration,
Assembly, and Test1●●NI technicians assemble, install software in, and test your system per yourcustom configuration prior to shipment.

AdvancedReplacement2●NI stocks replacement hardware that can be shipped immediately if a repair
is needed.

System Return
Material
Authorization (RMA)1●NI accepts the delivery of fully assembled systems when performing repair
services.

Expedited3

NI performs the requested level of calibration at the specified calibrationinterval for the duration of the service program.

Calibration Plan(Optional)

Standard

This option is only available for PXI, CompactRIO, and CompactDAQ systems.
This option is not available for all products in all countries. Contact your local NI sales engineer to confirm availability.
Expedited calibration only includes traceable levels.

123PremiumPlus Service Program

NI can customize the offerings listed above, or offer additional entitlements such as on-site calibration,custom sparing, and life-cycle services through a PremiumPlus Service Program. Contact your NI sales
representative to learn more.

Technical Support

Every NI system includes a 30-day trial for phone and e-mail support from NI engineers, which can beextended through a Software Service Program (SSP) membership. NI has more than 400 supportengineers available around the globe to provide local support in more than 30 languages. Additionally,take advantage of NI’s award winning online resources and communities.

©2017 National Instruments. All rights reserved. LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI, NI TestStand, and ni.com are trademarks ofNational Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. The
contents of this Site could contain technical inaccuracies, typographical errors or out-of-date information. Information may be
updated or changed at any time, without notice. Visit ni.com/manuals for the latest information.
29 August 2017
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