Patent ID: 8786293

Claim:
A two-port noise parameter measurement and extraction method for computerized noise measurement system, said system comprising a noise measurement path comprising a cascade of calibrated noise source, input DC bias network (Bias-T), automatic impedance tuner, DUT in a test fixture, output DC bias network (Bias-T), noise receiver, said noise measurement path being delimited between said noise source and noise receiver, and a small signal measurement path delimited between the ports of a network analyzer, and DC bias supply and DC bias and RF monitoring equipment, and RF switches allowing to direct the signal flow from noise to small signal measurement path; whereby the noise figure of the DUT is measured by the noise receiver using said calibrated noise source as a function of the source impedance; said source impedance being generated by said impedance tuner; said noise figure being measured at a multitude of frequencies and source impedances; and dedicated control, evaluation and noise parameter extraction software using a large number of random tuner settings and allowing extraction of two-port noise parameters through noise figure data filtering based on DUT stability and extraction convergence criteria, said extraction method comprising the following steps: a) biasing the DUT; b) collecting small signal s-parameter for all selected frequencies; c) synthesizing a number of pre-determined source-tuner-settings/tuning using the impedance tuner; d) verifying the physical stability of the DUT and jumping to step c) if DUT unstable; e) sweeping the measurement frequency of the noise receiver for each synthesized source tuner setting; f) collecting noise power data for the selected frequency; g) verifying the numerical stability of the DUT, by calculating the mismatch factor M and source reflection factor magnitude and jumping to next frequency point in e); h) verifying the validity of the measured noise figure data and eliminating unphysical data; i) continuing to e) for the next frequency until the end of the frequency loop; j) continuing to c) for the next source tuner setting until the end of the tuning loop; k) extracting the four two-port noise parameters for each frequency and a large number of source impedance permutations; l) selecting the extraction results to form a physically meaningful set of data over the whole frequency range.