Time & Frequency

Digital phosphor technology boosts RF signal

discovery and analysis
With emerging wireless applications, the RF spectrum is more chaotic than
ever before. Consequently, increasingly complex signals are crowding a
limited frequency spectrum. This article shows how digital phosphor
technology, traditionally used in advanced oscilloscopes, applied to the
real-time spectrum analyzers (RTSAs) is now enabling users to view live RF
signals for the rst time. Thus, providing unmatched insight into RF signal
behavior, thereby greatly accelerating the discovery and diagnosis of
problems relating to time-variant RF signals.
By Kathy Engholm

that are useful for modern test and measurement applications.

First, this combination offers persistence. Phosphor continues
to glow even after the electron beam has passed. Generally, the
uorescence fades quickly enough that viewers dont perceive it
lingering, but even a small amount of persistence will allow the human
eye to detect events that would otherwise be too short to see.
Second, phosphor coatings and vector drawing deliver proportionality. The slower the electron beam passes through a point
on the phosphor-coated screen, the brighter the resulting light.
Brightness of a spot also increases as the beam hits it more frequently.
Users intuitively know how to interpret this z-axis information:
a bright section of the trace indicates a frequent event or slow beam
motion, and a dim trace results from infrequent events or fastmoving beams.
Persistence and proportionality do not come naturally to instruments with LCDs (or even raster CRTs) and a digital signal path.
Digital phosphor technology was developed so the analog benets
of a vector CRT could be achieved, and even improved upon,
with digital oscilloscopes and now RTSAs. Digital enhancements
such as intensity grading, selectable color schemes and statistical
traces communicate more information in less time.

Digital phosphor technology basics

Digital phosphor technology can compress 1465 spectral mea-

Amplitude

he radio frequency (RF) spectrum is more chaotic than ever,

with more channels and increasingly complex signals crowding a limited frequency spectrum. As new applications use wireless
transmission and digital RF systems proliferate, engineers need
better tools to help them nd and interpret intricate RF signal behaviors
and interactions.
Fortunately, digital phosphor technology, traditionally used
in advanced oscilloscopes, has been applied to the RF domain
and can now be found in pre-eminent real-time spectrum analyzers
(RTSAs). In enabling users to view live RF signals for the rst
time, digital phosphor technology provides unmatched insight into
RF signal behavior. In fact, full-motion digital phosphor displays
show signals and details that are completely missed by conventional spectrum analyzers and vector signal analyzers (VSAs), greatly
accelerating the discovery and diagnosis of problems relating to
time-variant RF signals.
The name digital phosphor derives from the phosphor coating
on the inside of cathode ray tubes (CRTs) used as displays in televisions, computer monitors and older test equipment. When an electron
beam excites the phosphor, it uoresces, lighting up the path drawn
by the stream of electrons. Although, raster-scan technologies, such as
liquid crystal displays (LCDs), eventually replaced CRTs in many
applications due to depth and power advantages, the combination of
phosphor coatings and vector drawing in CRTs provided several benets

Frequency
Figure 1. Color-coded low-resolution example (left), and a real DPX display (right).

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Figure 2. With variables persistence, a brief CW signal captured by DPX

remains in the display for an adjustable period of time before fading away.

surements into one screen update every 33 milliseconds, yet this is

an oversimplied description of the role it performs in top RTSAs.
Every second, 48,828 acquisitions are taken and transformed into
spectrums. This high transform rate is the key to detecting infrequent
events, but it is far too fast for the LCD to keep pace and well beyond
what human eyes can perceive. Therefore, the incoming spectrums
are written into a bitmap database at full speed then transferred to
the screen at a viewable 30 Hz rate.
The bitmap database can be envisioned as a dense grid created by
dividing a spectrum graph into rows representing trace amplitude
values and columns for points on the frequency axis. Each cell in this
grid contains the count of how many times it was hit by an incoming
spectrum. Tracking these counts is how digital phosphor technology
implements proportionality, enabling the user to visually distinguish
rare transients from normal signals and background noise.
Figure 1 offers a simplied view of the bitmap database as well
as the actual digital phosphor display. The grid on the left shows the
number of occurrences values after nine spectral transforms have
been performed. Blank cells contain the value zero, meaning that
no points from a spectrum have fallen into them yet. One of the
nine spectrums happened to be computed at a time during which
the signal was absent, as can be seen by the string of 1 values at
the noise oor.
When these values are mapped to a color scale, data turns into
information. In this example, warmer colors (red, orange, yellow)
indicate more occurrences. The RTSA user can dene other intensitygrading schemes. Displaying these colored cells, one per pixel on
the screen, creates the spectacular digital phosphor display. The actual
three-dimensional bitmap database of leading RTSAs with digital
phosphor technology contains 501 columns and 201 rows to accumulate
data and produce the spectrum display.
As previously mentioned, 48,828 spectrums enter the database
each second. At the end of each frame of more than 1400 input
spectrums (roughly 30 times per second), the bitmap database is
transferred out for additional processing before being displayed, and
data from a new frame starts lling the bitmap.
To implement persistence, the digital phosphor engine can keep the
existing counts and add to them as new spectrums arrive, rather than
clearing the bitmap database counts to zero at the start of each new
frame. Maintaining the full count values across all frames is innite
persistence. If only a fraction of each count is carried over to the
next frame, it is called variable persistence. Adjusting the fraction
changes the length of time it takes for a signal event to decay from
the database and fade from the display.
Imagine a signal that popped up only once during the time the
digital phosphor engine was running. Furthermore, assume that it

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Figure 3. Swept analyzer after ve seconds MaxHold trace.

Figure 4. DPX Spectrum display after ve seconds bitmap color mapping

is spectral to emphasize infrequent signals with hot colors. MaxHold
trace is yellow.

was present for all 1465 spectrum updates in a frame and that the
variable persistence factor causes 25% attenuation after each frame.
The cells it affected would start out with a value of 1465 and be
displayed at full force. One frame later, the number of occurrences
values become 1099. After the next frame, they are 824, then smaller
and smaller until they are invisible. On the RTSA screen, the user
would initially see a bright trace with a spike at the signal frequency.
The part of the trace where the signal occurred eventually fades
away. During this time, the pixels start to brighten at the noise
level below the fading signal. In the end, there is only a baseline
trace in the display, as can be seen in Figure 2.
Persistence capabilities of RTSAs with digital phosphor technology are an extremely valuable troubleshooting aid, delivering all the
benets of MaxHold and more. To nd out if there is an intermittent
signal or occasional shift in frequency or amplitude, the user can
turn on innite persistence and let the RTSA run continuously. When
the user returns, not only will the highest level for each frequency
point be visible, but also the lowest levels and any points in between.
Once the presence of transient behavior or intruding signals has
been revealed, the user can characterize the problem in detail with
variable persistence.
A colorful bitmap is digital phosphor technologys signature trace,
but it also produces statistical line traces. The database contents are
queried for the highest, lowest and average amplitude values recorded
in each frequency column. The three resulting trace detections are
+Peak, -Peak and Average. The +Peak and -Peak traces instantly and
clearly show signal maxima and minima. Average detection nds
the mean level for the signal at each frequency point. All these traces

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Figure 6. DPX bitmap and MaxHold trace after 20 seconds.

Figure 5. Swept analyzer MaxHold trace after 120 seconds.

can be saved and restored for use as reference traces.

Just like regular spectrum traces, digital phosphor line traces can
be accumulated over ongoing acquisitions to yield MaxHold, MinHold
and average trace functions. Using hold on the +Peak trace is almost
exactly the same as the MaxHold trace on a typical spectrum analyzer,
with the important difference that the digital phosphor traces update
rate (48 k/s, just like the digital phosphor bitmap) is three orders
of magnitude faster.

Detecting short, infrequent signals

The following example outlines the discovery and analysis of a

brief, intermittent RF signal anomaly using a traditional spectrum
analyzer and a modern RTSA with digital phosphor technology.
The signal in question is a continuous-wave (CW) sinusoid at
2.4453 GHz. Every 1.28 seconds, its frequency changes for about
100 s, then returns to normal. The duty factor of this transient is less
than 0.01%.
The traditional swept-tuned spectrum analyzer is set up for a
ve-second sweep of its MaxHold trace. It shows that there is something

it hops back to 2.4453 GHz, again with some frequency overshoot

and settling.
In addition to the level of detail on a spectrum display, the probability
of intercept (POI) varies for different analyzer classes.
Swept-tuned and step-tuned spectrum analyzers cannot provide
100% POI for a signal that isnt continuously present because they
spend only a short period of time tuned to each small portion of their
frequency span during a sweep. If something happens in any part of
the span other than where it is tuned at that instant, the event will
not be detected or displayed. There is also a period of time between
sweeps during which the analyzer is not paying attention to the
input signal. VSAs and other FFT-based analyzers also miss signals during the time between acquisitions. Their POI is typically
better than a swept analyzers, albeit not appreciably, depending
on a combination of factors including span, resolution bandwidth
(RBW) and processing time.
RTSAs, on the other hand, capture data across all frequencies
within their real-time span (up to 110 MHz for select RTSAs) during
every acquisition. With unique, advanced features such as frequency
mask trigger, the POI with these instruments increases to 100%,
ensuring capture of any spectral event matching the trigger denition.
When operating in free run mode as a simple spectrum analyzer,
the RTSA has a POI similar to other FFT-based analyzers, with
gaps between each acquisition. Adding digital
phosphor technology to the RTSA, however, brings
100% POI to free run mode for any signal at least
24 s long and wit in the real-time bandwidth of
the RTSA.
In addition to guaranteeing detection of short,
infrequent signal events, digital phosphor technology provides a true representation of multiple
RF signals occupying the same frequency range.
More dramatic than any technical specication is
how quickly RF designers and network operators can discover and
resolve problems with a clear view of eeting signals on the digital
phosphor display. RFD

Just like regular spectrum traces, digital

phosphor line traces can be accumulated
over ongoing acquisitions to yield MaxHold,
MinHold and average trace functions.
occurring around the signal, as can be seen in Figure 3. This sweep
rate was empirically determined to be the optimum rate for reliable
capture of this signal in the shortest time. Faster sweep times can
reduce the probability of intercept and result in fewer intersections of
the sweep with the signal transient.
Using a modern RTSA with digital phosphor technology, however,
the instruments displaywith both the bitmap and a +PeakHold
traceshows much more information about the transient after the
same ve-second period, as can be seen in Figure 4.
After 120 seconds (four sweeps of 30 seconds), additional clues
are visible in the swept analyzers display, as shown in Figure 5.
In contrast, after only 20 seconds, the digital phosphor display
shows a much more informative picture, which can be seen in
Figure 6. Looking at the digital phosphor display, it is obvious at
rst glance that the CW signal is hopping up to a frequency
approximately 3 MHz higher than its starting point, but overshooting
by 2.5 MHz, then undershooting a little, and nally settling. Then

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathy Engholm is the user experience architect for the real-time
spectrum analyzers product line at Tektronix. A principal engineer,
she has worked at Tektronix since receiving her BSEE from Iowa
State University in 1980. Her roles have included electrical hardware design, marketing and market research, sales, management,
human interface design and product planning. In addition, she
has designed for oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, video test equipment and telecommunications test sets.

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