New-Tech Europe Magazine | February 2018

more than a decade. It supports all Bluetooth standards from 1.2 to 5. It comes with pre-configured test scripts for single-button testing. The equipment under test can be controlled directly from the MT8852B through UART, USB, USB-adaptor, or 2-wire interfaces. The RTX 2300 is a test solution used for the production testing of any wireless device. It incorporates a range of modular instruments which makes it highly configurable, such as a programmable power supply (PSU), digital voltmeter (DVM), signal multiplexer, and pneumatic control. It is highly customizable, including an RF shielded fixture bay that allows for a device-specific probe fixture. The RTX 2300 has been used in production tests for the past decade. Combining the MT8852B and RTX 2300 results in a validated Automated Test Equipment (ATE) solution that currently supports Bluetooth standards 4.0 to 4.2 and which is highly flexible, scalable, easy to use, and powerful, making it very cost effective. Bluetooth 4.2 test parameters supported out-of-the-box by Bluetooth Low Energy Test System are shown in Fig.3. Flexible and scalable In addition to the MT8852B and RTX2300 the system also includes the RTX Testgear software platform. The test solution is capable of testing one device under test (DUT) along with flash programming, baseband testing, clock alignment, and radiated RF measurements. The system’s low initial cost makes it suited to applications in small-scale manufacturing where tolerances on RF measurements are relaxed because of the radiated approach. This setup can be customised to be capable of testing 16 DUTs in parallel and performing conducted RF

Figure 1. Bluetooth Low Energy test solution based on the Anritsu MT8852B Bluetooth test set and the RTX2300 production tester

measurements. Such a setup would be dedicated to high manufacturing throughput and accuracy. Easy to use The RTX Testgear software platform included in the system includes everything needed to start testing a Bluetooth low energy device out of the box, without any additional development effort from the user. That means that it can handle

everything normally required by Bluetooth chipsets currently on the market, such as crystal oscillator (XTAL) calibration, firmware download, RF measurements conforming to Bluetooth standards 4.0-4.2 through pre-defined scripts, and programming of the required unique Bluetooth device address (BD_ADDR). RTX Testgear is a .NET based framework, an integral part of which

Figure 2. Anritsu MT8852B Bluetooth test set and the RTX 2300 production test system

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