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Impedance measurements stabilize op-amp buffers

The unity-gain op amp (operational amplifier) buffer circuit is routinely used to transform high-impedance inputs into low-impedance outputs. ADC (analog-to-digital converter) voltage references are…
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Article
Impedance measurements make a difference at DesignCon

What do clock jitter, EMI, control loop stability, SPICE modeling, rogue waves and the ripeness of fruit have in common? Do you need to…
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Article
PICOTEST NEWSLETTER 1/2015

Picotest Announces Transmission Line Probes Solve Loading/Cable & Load Step Issues Picotest’s 1 and 2 Port 50 ohm transmission line probes are now available. These…
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Video
Essential 1-Port PDN PROBE: Applications Abound

Don’t confuse the 1-port PDN probe with a 10 to 1 ratio, passive oscilloscope probe. They have little in common with a 1-port PDN…
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Article
PICOTEST NEWSLETTER 11/2014

Picotest Announces Low Cost Full Featured POWER SUPPLY 15% Educational Discount Outperforms the Keysight E3632A at half the price! The P961xA Series of programmable, single output,…
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Article
Paultre on Power – Steve Sandler of Picotest on power test and noise (Podcast)

October 31, 2014 In this podcast Steve Sandler of Picotest talks to Alix Paultre of Power Systems Design on the issues of power test,…
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Article
Keysight E5061B VNA Gains Non-Invasive Stability Measurements

NISM software is now available. Bringing the unique non-invasive stability test to the Keysight E5061B vector network analyzer. The software add-on, available now for…
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Article
Simple trick to measure plane impedance with a VNA

The question of time vs. frequency, as the most useful measurement domain, has long been a controversial topic. In some cases, it leads to…
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Article
Techniques for accurate PSRR measurements

By John Rice, System Engineer, Texas Instruments and Steve Sandler, Managing Director, Picotest IntroductionIn theory, measuring the power-supply-rejection ratio (PSRR) is relatively simple. A…
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Article
PDN Basics For Power Designers: Impedance Matching Is Critical. (Part three of the video series.)

by Steve Sandler, Picotest, Phoenix, Ariz. PDN Basics For Power Designers: Impedance Matching Is Critical. (Part three of the video series.) In modern electronic…
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Video
PDN Basics For Power Designers: Keep Impedance Flat. (Part two of the video series.)

by Steve Sandler, Picotest, Phoenix, Ariz. In modern electronic systems, the performance of FPGAs, CPUs, and other high-speed logic devices depends on the power…
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Video
PDN Basics For Power Designers: What is PDN? (Part one of the video series.)

by Steve Sandler, Picotest, Phoenix, Ariz. In modern electronic systems, the performance of FPGAs, CPUs, and other high-speed logic devices depends on the power…
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Video
Match impedances when making measurements

Oscilloscope probes are handy tools for making measurements, but they have limitations. For example, they have rather limited bandwidth and that ground clip can…
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Article
Three Stability Assessment Methods Every Engineer Should Know About

Many engineers are familiar with the Bode plot as an effective stability assessment method. However, some authors suggest and even teach that the Bode…
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Article
Improve Performance And Reduce Cost

By carefully matching the VRM, PCB planes, and load circuits to each other and to the required impedance magnitude, a flat PDN impedance can…
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Article
SPICE models need correlation to measurements

Many SPICE models are available online that were created by IC and semiconductor manufacturers. Unfortunately, availability doesn’t necessarily equal usability. The majority of these…
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Article
Software Enables Accurate Stability Test, Improves Non-Invasive Phase Margin Measurement Accuracy

Many articles and application notes have come out in recent years discussing the assessment of stability without access to the control loop, since the…
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Article
PCB characteristics affect PDN performance

The basic design rules for power distribution networks (PDN) teach us that the best performance is obtained from a uniform, frequency independent (or flat)…
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Article
Measure PDN on a budget

As the use of microcontrollers, CPUs and FPGAs continues to grow, more engineers are facing challenges with their power distribution network (PDN) design. Many…
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Article
Understanding Voltage Response Of An LC Circuit

Question submitted by Ashish Roy, Havells-Sylvania, India For an undamped LC circuit excited by an AC voltage source through simple phaser equations, we come…
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Article
Inside the 21st Century Power Test Lab

Making high fidelity measurements on high-performance power converters—when measured alone or in distributed power systems—can require a number of different test instruments encompassing multiple…
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Video
Measure small impedances with Rogowski current probes

You’re probably familiar with clamp on current probes, but chances are you don’t know much about the Rogowski current probe. A Rogowski coil produces…
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Article
Five Things Every Engineer Should Know About Bode Plots

The Bode plot is recognized for its simplicity and the simple asymptotic approach makes the method useful for both design and assessment of power…
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Article
Troubleshooting Distributed Power Systems: Making Time Domain Measurements (Part 8 – The final video of the series.)

In previous videos, Sandler discussed measurement of power supply signals such a switch-node waveforms and output ripple. In this video, he delves further into…
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Video
Non-Invasively Assess Your Multiple-Loop LDO’s Stability

Some low-dropout regulators (LDOs) use multiple feedback loops to improve output voltage transient response. In many of these cases, some or all of the…
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Article
Troubleshooting Distributed Power Systems: Measuring Ripple (Part 7 of the ongoing series)

Circuit designers, particularly power supply designers, are frequently required to measure power supply ripple. Nevertheless, many engineers struggle with this measurement as sensitivity, selectivity,…
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Video
Six tips for better TDR measurements

Signal speeds and devices continue to get faster and operating voltages continue to fall, placing ever increasing demands on signal and power integrity. If…
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Article
PDN Basics – Paralleling Tantalum and Ceramic Capacitors Can Be Risky

Paralleling capacitors to achieve high frequency sideband decoupling must take into account the performance characteristics of individual capacitors. 1.470 tantalum capacitor is installed in…
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Article
Troubleshooting Distributed Power Systems: The Switch (Part 6 of the ongoing series.)

System and power converter issues are frequently related to a converter’s switching characteristics, which are most easily observed at the switching node. In this…
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Video
Combination VNA/FRAs Offer More Capability And Lower Cost

A frequency response analyzer (‘FRA’) is often used to measure gain and phase plots of control loops (Bode plots), filter responses and general frequency…
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Article
PDN Issues Occur in the Simplest of Circuits

When we think of a power distribution network (PDN), the first images that usually come to mind are FPGAs and CPUs. These circuits generally…
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Article
How To Verify Control Loop Design

The non-invasive stability assessment is a method that uses an output impedance measurement to accurately determine stability without access to the control loop. The…
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Article
Troubleshooting Distributed Power Systems: Using Current Injectors (Part 5 of the ongoing video series.)

Previous videos in this series discussed the use of vector network analyzers (VNAs) to measure impedance using one- or two-port configurations. This video discusses…
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Video
Five Things Every Engineer Should Know About PDN

We generally associate the Power Distribution Network (“PDN”) with the power circuits used to drive CPUs and FPGAs. The increasing use of FPGAs in…
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Article
Oscilloscope Mistakes: #4 (Part 4 of 4)

Avoiding common pitfalls will get you better data with minimum effort. Steve Sandler takes a look at four common scope mistakes and shows how…
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Article
Oscilloscope Mistakes: #3 (Part 3 of 4)

Avoiding common pitfalls will get you better data with minimum effort. Steve Sandler takes a look at four common scope mistakes and shows how…
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Article
Oscilloscope Mistakes: #2 (Part 2 of 4)

Avoiding common pitfalls will get you better data with minimum effort. Steve Sandler takes a look at four common scope mistakes and shows how…
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Article
FAQ #30: Can the Bode 100 measure complex permeability of Inductors/Chokes with some additional adapter and/or equipment?

It can measure impedance and that can get you there. We measure permeability by relating the inductance and physical core parameters such as core…
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Article
FAQ #29: How do you calibrate probes using the Bode 100 and the J2120A line injector?

The simple method of calibrating the probes is to connect them both to the same signal and perform a thru calibration. Details on this…
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Article
FAQ #28: Who uses the Bode 100 network analyzer?

The Bode is used in many industries including Military, Space, Medical and commercial. NASA, Ball Aerospace, Boeing, Lockheed and ESA are among our high…
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Article

All

Impedance measurements stabilize op-amp buffers

Impedance measurements make a difference at DesignCon

PICOTEST NEWSLETTER 1/2015

Essential 1-Port PDN PROBE: Applications Abound

PICOTEST NEWSLETTER 11/2014

Paultre on Power – Steve Sandler of Picotest on power test and noise (Podcast)

Keysight E5061B VNA Gains Non-Invasive Stability Measurements

Simple trick to measure plane impedance with a VNA

Techniques for accurate PSRR measurements

PDN Basics For Power Designers: Impedance Matching Is Critical. (Part three of the video series.)

PDN Basics For Power Designers: Keep Impedance Flat. (Part two of the video series.)

PDN Basics For Power Designers: What is PDN? (Part one of the video series.)

Match impedances when making measurements

Three Stability Assessment Methods Every Engineer Should Know About

Improve Performance And Reduce Cost

SPICE models need correlation to measurements

Software Enables Accurate Stability Test, Improves Non-Invasive Phase Margin Measurement Accuracy

PCB characteristics affect PDN performance

Measure PDN on a budget

Understanding Voltage Response Of An LC Circuit

Inside the 21st Century Power Test Lab

Measure small impedances with Rogowski current probes

Five Things Every Engineer Should Know About Bode Plots

Troubleshooting Distributed Power Systems: Making Time Domain Measurements (Part 8 – The final video of the series.)

Non-Invasively Assess Your Multiple-Loop LDO’s Stability

Troubleshooting Distributed Power Systems: Measuring Ripple (Part 7 of the ongoing series)

Six tips for better TDR measurements

PDN Basics – Paralleling Tantalum and Ceramic Capacitors Can Be Risky

Troubleshooting Distributed Power Systems: The Switch (Part 6 of the ongoing series.)

Combination VNA/FRAs Offer More Capability And Lower Cost

PDN Issues Occur in the Simplest of Circuits

How To Verify Control Loop Design

Troubleshooting Distributed Power Systems: Using Current Injectors (Part 5 of the ongoing video series.)

Five Things Every Engineer Should Know About PDN

Oscilloscope Mistakes: #4 (Part 4 of 4)

Oscilloscope Mistakes: #3 (Part 3 of 4)

Oscilloscope Mistakes: #2 (Part 2 of 4)

FAQ #30: Can the Bode 100 measure complex permeability of Inductors/Chokes with some additional adapter and/or equipment?

FAQ #29: How do you calibrate probes using the Bode 100 and the J2120A line injector?

FAQ #28: Who uses the Bode 100 network analyzer?