Microwave Journal
www.microwavejournal.com/articles/29759-movandi-keysight-collaborate-to-advance-mmwave-technology-test-capabilities

Movandi, Keysight Collaborate to Advance mmWave Technology, Test Capabilities

February 8, 2018

Movandi announced its collaboration with Keysight Technologies to test and validate Movandi’s BeamX technology and support optimizing Keysight’s over-the-air (OTA) test systems. Movandi’s leading mmWave technology is a scalable RF front-end solution that integrates RF, antenna, beamforming and control algorithms into a modular 5G mmWave solution intended for Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), small cell and base station applications. The superior performance of Movandi’s RFIC, phased array antenna and beamforming techniques enable the next generation of 5G and multi-gigabit connectivity that is driving new applications.

Because higher performance of the optimized RFIC and antenna solutions require leading edge equipment to support the development process, Movandi will rely on Keysight for its leading-edge testing and measurement tools in the development, qualification and manufacturing of mmWave RF and antenna technologies. Movandi will also provide antenna arrays to Keysight to support the optimization and streamlining the process of performing OTA testing.

“We are excited to work together to advance the 5G market and solve the challenges at every step in the development and deployment process,” said Reza Rofougaran, CTO and co-CEO, Movandi.  “Solving the testing challenges will help uncover the huge potential offered by much greater bandwidth, spatial reuse and frequency reuse.”

Beamforming introduces new challenges to effectively evaluate antenna performance and Movandi was able to verify shifting of antenna beams with the use of Keysight signal generators, oscilloscopes and vector signal analyzer software by analyzing the magnitude and phase shift between antenna channels. 5G and mmWave represent the most disruptive generational change in cellular networks since the movement to digital. Everything is hard- higher frequencies, ill-behaved propagation, beamforming and over-the-air testing. This partnership will go a long way in developing and testing mmWave technology. 

“We are pleased to be enabling startups like Movandi, who are innovating to provide solutions that make 5G possible,” said Kailash Narayanan, vice president and general manager, Wireless Device and Operators group, Keysight Technologies. “Tightly coupled integration of the elements from baseband to RF to air interface present new opportunities that require our testing solutions to deliver the validation needed for Movandi’s next-gen technologies.”

The Keysight 5G test solution includes PNA-X network analyzers, UXA spectrum/signal analyzers, M8190A arbitrary waveform generator, PSG vector signal generators, 89600A VSA software and S-Series and Z-Series oscilloscopes.