Non-signaling testing is expected to significantly shorten test time

The market penetration rate of non-signaling test solutions is rising rapidly. In order to achieve global roaming, China Mobile plans to launch a 5-mode 13-band smartphone by the end of 2013, which is expected to drive the rapid increase in demand for non-signaling test solutions for production lines, greatly shorten the testing time of smartphones, and help smartphone brands seize the market opportunity.

Chen Junyu, technical director of wireless business in Greater China of Agilent, said that the 5-mode 13-band smartphone can simultaneously support five modes of LTE networks, including time division long-range evolution (TD-LTE), frequency division duplex (FDD)-LTE, time division-synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA), wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), and global system for mobile communications (GSM), and 13 frequency bands, which will extend the product testing time.

Chen Junyu pointed out that in order to help smartphone original equipment manufacturers (OEM)/original design manufacturers (ODM) overcome the problem of doubling product testing time, mobile chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm will provide non-signaling test modes in their products, allowing smartphone OEMs and ODMs to use non-signaling test solutions for testing, which will help save testing time.

It is understood that smartphones and their built-in communication chips have been fully tested using signaling test solutions during the research and development stage, so non-signaling test solutions can be used at the production line end to reduce testing time, especially for 5-mode 13-band smartphones, which have many modes and frequency bands for testing. The demand for non-signaling test solutions will be more urgent, so mobile chip suppliers have successively introduced non-signaling test modes in their products.

Targeting the promising future of non-signaling test solutions, test instrument vendors such as Agilent and Anritsu have also released comprehensive wireless testers to help smartphone manufacturers speed up product testing schedules. For example, Agilent recently launched a wireless tester for the production line non-signaling test market - the E6640A EXM, which supports 160MHz bandwidth and a frequency range of up to 6GHz, and covers the widest range of wireless standards, such as LTE, Advanced Long Range Evolution (LTE-Advanced), TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 1.0~4.0, and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).

Michael Griffin, product marketing manager of Agilent's Wireless Broadband Division, emphasized that when testing smartphones or network communication devices equipped with a single antenna, the E6640A EXM can test up to 16 cellular and wireless connection devices at the same time; if testing smartphones or network communication devices with built-in dual antennas, eight devices under test (DUTs) can be tested in parallel; if expanded through a multi-port adapter (MPA), up to 32 DUTs can be tested simultaneously, which is beneficial for mobile phone and network communication equipment manufacturers to speed up product testing.

Griffin added that the E6640A EXM can achieve simultaneous testing of up to 32 DUTs through MPT expansion, which is bound to be lower than purchasing new non-signaling test instruments, so it will be the most economical purchasing option for customers who seek to reduce production costs and test efficiency.