Patent ID: 8525509

Claim:
An electronic component tester for characterizing electronic components comprising: means for exciting a response characterization signal from said electronic components for determining a residual signal remaining in said electronic components from said means for exciting the response characterization signal in a first period of time impacting said response characterization signal from a second period of time; a spectrum analyzer in communication with said electronic components to receive said response characterization signal for determining a frequency spectrum of said response characterization signal, the spectrum analyzer comprising: an up-converter circuit receiving a low pass filtered response characterization signal for conversion to an intermediate frequency signal, a first bandpass filter in communication with the up-converter circuit to receive said intermediate frequency signal for filtering to further limit harmonic frequencies; and a second bandpass filter connected to receive a final output frequency signal for filtering to further limit said harmonic frequencies; wherein a center frequency of said first bandpass filter is a sum of the intermediate frequency and a center frequency of said second bandpass filter; and a tester process controller in communication with the spectrum analyzer for generating calibration and control signals for removing effects of an image frequency of said characterization signal from the first period of time from said response characterization signal from the second period of time and for determining a signal-to-noise ratio for determining said residual signal.