2-Port Residual Noise Measurements

As phase noise becomes an increasingly important system-level specification for electronic test equipment, communications systems, and radar systems. It is not only important to quantify the noise produced by oscillators, but also the noise added by each component in the signal processing chain. This application note reviews the fundamentals of residual or additive noise and addresses measurement techniques for determining the amplitude (AM) and phase noise added by two-port devices such as: amplifiers, mixers, block frequency converters, multipliers, dividers, and frequency synthesizers.
Additionally, the Rohde & Schwarz FSWP phase noise analyzer will be introduced and a discussion of residual noise measurement techniques for the above-mentioned devices will be provided.