A performance review of some VNA electronic

calibrators

Presentation by Christopher Eiø

Præsentation: ANAMET, NPL Monday 18. September

Background

• The concept of electronic calibrators has been around for a

number of years

• DTI project has been to investigate the use of electronic

calibrators as transfer standards

• A number of papers around comparing electronic to

mechanical calibrations, including
– J P Ide, “Test driving the Wiltron 36581NNF AutoCal ANA
calibrator”, ANAMET Report 011, Oct 1997
– “Electronic v. Mechanical Calibration Kits: Calibration Methods and
Accuracy”, Agilent White Paper
How do they work?

• Essentially use a pseudo ‘SOLT’ approach

• Modules contain several impedance standards

• Standards are selected through switching; no need to

disconnect and reconnect standards
How do they work?

• A ‘through’ standard is required for two-port calibrations

• Most modules offer two options for the through standard:

– Actual through
– Device through
Advantages

• Speed: can be much faster than a mechanical calibration, but

can also be slower

• Fewer connections required: maximum of 3 vs. minimum of 5

(TRL)

• Size: much smaller than a mechanical kit

• Ease of use
Disadvantages

• Limited to the individual manufacturer

• No direct traceability to primary length standards

• Limited track record of performance

So are they any good?

• How do they perform?

• Calibration time
• Post-calibration residual errors
• Repeatability of calibration
• Comparison of ‘true’ and ‘calibrator’ through
two-port calibration
• Module re-characterisation
Modules under investigation

• Anritsu 36581NNF AUTOCAL (40 MHz – 18 GHz)

• Anritsu 36582KKF AUTOCAL (40 MHz – 40 GHz)
used with Anritsu 37XXX series VNA

• Agilent N4691B ECal (300 kHz – 26.5 GHz)

used with Agilent PNA series VNA
Performance: speed

• Speed comparison
• carried out using different averaging values

Default 128 256 512

Fixed load 3:00 3:45 4:40 6:30

Type N AUTOCAL 0:30 1:25 2:30 4:30

Time displayed in min:sec

Performance:
residual errors

• Typical residual errors can be found in literature1

• In general, residual errors close to those typified were

obtained

1N M Ridler & C Graham, “Some typical values for the residual error terms of a calibrated vector
automatic network analyser”, BEMC 99 Digest; and C P Eiø, “Typical residual error values in coaxial line
up to 65 GHz”, ANAMET Report 049
Performance:
residual errors

Test port match

3.5 mm calibration using

N4691B ECal
Performance:
calibration repeatability

• Perform six calibrations

• Measure a two-port device each time (20 dB pad)

• Take the standard deviation of the mean of both the real and
imaginary components at each frequency (Type A uncertainty)
Performance:
calibration repeatability

Up to 18 GHz

Reflection Transmission

Type N AUTOCAL 0.000 8 0.000 2 (0.017 dB)

K AUTOCAL 0.001 0.000 1 (0.009 dB)

GPC-3.5 ECal 0.000 4 -

Performance:
calibration repeatability

Up to 26.5 GHz

Reflection Transmission

Type N AUTOCAL N/A N/A

K AUTOCAL 0.003 0.000 2 (0.017 dB)

GPC-3.5 ECal 0.000 7 -

 Performance: two-
port calibrations |S21| of 20 dB attenuator

0.105

Calibrator through

|S21|
0.1 True through
Cert values

Phase of S21 0.095

0 5 10 15 20

0.5 Frequency (GHz)

0
0 5 10 15 20
-0.5
Phase (°)

Cert values
-1 Calibrator thru
True thru
-1.5

-2

-2.5
Frequency (GHz)
Why re-characterise
the module?

• Internal standards may change over a period of time

• Traceability to national standards required

• Unavailability of modules with a particular connector type

Performance: re-
characterisation

• Perform a manual calibration

• Connect up the module

• VNA will re-characterise the module using the relevant

function

• To test, compare measurements of a 20 dB pad after a manual

calibration and after automatic calibration using a re-
characterised module
Performance: re-
characterisation

S21 of 20 dB pad after re-characterisation

0.0005 0.10

0.0004 0.08

0.0003 0.06

0.0002 0.04

Difference
0.02
Difference

0.0001

0.0000 0.00
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
-0.0001 -0.02

-0.0002 -0.04

-0.0003 -0.06

-0.0004 -0.08

-0.0005 -0.10

Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

Magnitude difference Phase difference

Module re-characterised with GPC-3.5 – GPC-7 adaptors to

provide 7mm measurement plane. A TRL calibration was used
to perform the manual calibration.
Summary

• In most cases, electronic calibration wins the speed battle

• The post calibration residual errors are comparable with those

one would expect from a manual calibrations

• They look to be very repeatable

• An ‘actual’ through provides a more accurate calibration

• Not done enough to state confidently about re-characterisation

Questions?

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