RFcreations is a core team of highly skilled and knowledgeable, professional engineers with decades of experience across the design and development of both RF and digital hardware, embedded, protocol stacks and UI software. Inclusive of production test for industry leading customers and partners. From semiconductors, through high-value consumer end-products to disruptive wireless connectivity eco-systems, we understand the complexities involved in the journey from ‘idea’ to ‘production’.
Based in Cambridge we embrace the heritage of the exceptional innovation and disruptive technology that has gone before us and strive to contribute to this tradition.
Our vision is to create analysis and measurement products from first principles that really solve our customers’ challenges, not to simply replicate what is already available.
Main products
• Bluetooth Protocol Analyzer Mini Moreph
• Bluetooth RF Protocol Tester Moreph30
• Bluetooth comprehensive tester MorephE
• Bluetooth CS RF Tester MorephCS
Mini-moreph is a wideband Bluetooth Protocol Analyser platform that when integrated with the blueSPY Protocol analysis application offers multiple configuration options, to solve ‘real world’ test challenges, in the lab, in production test and in the field. Based on the moreph software defined radio (SDR), it can perform wideband capture of the entire 2.4GHz ISM band, simultaneously capturing and decoding multiple wireless technologies. It has full PHY support for Bluetooth™ (BR/EDR), BLE, LE Audio, Channel Sounding, Qualcomm® High Speed Link, (QHSL), MediaTek mHDT V2.0 and 802.15.4 and has the flexibility to offer customized PHY options on request. Built-in spectrum analysis, up to 16 logic analyser channels and the ability to monitor all 13 WIFI channels simultaneously. Packed with advanced features as standard and only weighing 110g it is a very powerful addition to your development toolkit.
BlueSPY includes full support for Channel Sounding, capturing all CS Sync and Tone packets and analysing CS Procedures at both the protocol level and the PHY level. CS Sync packets are timestamped to 10 ns precision, and the relative phases and phase stability of CS Tone packets are measured and analysed using a fully phase-coherent receiver. If the CS parameters are visible to blueSPY (either through LL traffic, or through HCI capture/import in the case of Test procedures), the configuration is fed into the DRBG and steps/subevents/events are analysed for timing accuracy, and for any errors in the generation of AAs, channel maps, payloads etc. If the CS parameters are not available, the packets can be filtered on RSSI, AAs, channels etc to show the relevant CS steps.
Is a portable standalone option, with the addition of a USB battery and SD card in the mini-moreph storage extension slot, capture without a host or to facilitate unattended capture is simple.
For co-existence monitoring you need to know when the WiFi packets arrive in relation to the Bluetooth packets. mini-moreph monitors all 13 WIFI channels simultaneously and as BlueSPY detects WiFi packets using the same receiver chain as the Bluetooth the clocks are synchronized, thus guaranteeing perfect alignment of the WiFi and Bluetooth timestamps.
blueSPY includes proprietary TO timing functionality which enables full capture of isochronous traffic from the initial occurrence without any breaks even if the link key is not known at the start of the capture.
LC3 audio received in blueSPY can optionally be decoded using user-specified audio parameters; the proprietary autodetect algorithm can help you choose which parameters to use. This can help either if the configuration sent OTA was missed due to interference, or if the sender has specified one configuration but encoded the audio using a different one.
The moreph30 can perform all of the tests set out in the Bluetooth Radio Frequency Physical Layer test specification for both BR/EDR and BLE without the need for external test equipment, with the exception of out-of-band blocking. The application can act as a signalling tester, with full control of the device under test (DUT) over-the-air. It can also be used in a non-signalling mode, analysing packets transmitted by the DUT, as well as generating both wanted and interfering signals simultaneously for reception by the DUT.
For BLE the moreph30 can utilise advertise and scan packets to provoke a response from the device and perform both transmitter and receiver testing. It can also analyse packets on a live link as well as acting as a signal generator capable of producing both wanted and interfering signals simultaneously.
• Pre-Compliance tester. Allows the developer to "pre-test" with confidence before committing to a formal test house.
• Silicon evaluation. Capture corrupt waveforms for detailed analysis and perform RF-PHY testing on live links.
• Silicon characterisation. Eliminates the need for additional test equipment, dramatically reducing test time and increasing throughput.
• RMA analysis. Simple to use GUI rapidly identifies potential issues.
• Loop back testing. Scripted support for all RF-PHY test cases.
• Signal Generation. Create complex composite test signals.
• Signal Analysis. Off-air or conducted detailed waveform and BER analysis. Permits interactive control of DUT, dirty transmitter, and interferers.
• DUT control. Debug LMP traffic between Zircon and the device under test.
• Packet sniffer. Combine with Wirehshark to form an elementary packet sniffer.
• Scan/Advertise. Provoke and test device without serial interface.
Etherstore application are capable of recording and playing back the entire 2.4GHz ISM band. The recorded data is stored within the morephE hardware and has a maximum duration of 3hours and 40 minutes. morephE may be operated either standalone or attached to a controlling host platform via USB or Ethernet. It can also playback RF recorded files or user downloaded waveforms.
The Etherstore application can analyse captured files to provide, but is not limited to the following:
• Generate a score indicating how challenging the environment is for Bluetooth devices to operate in.
• Generate a clear channel assessment for Bluetooth devices.
• Generate a clear channel assessment for WiFi devices.
• Analyse the energy within the band to determine the likely source of that energy.
The morephE contains a high-performance receiver specifically tailored for the 2.4GHz ISM band. For example, the front-end contains two high performance F-BAR filters to protect the receiver front-end from nearby cellular and similar transmissions (see graph below). By developing only for the 2.4GHz ISM band, the morephE receiver dramatically out-performs general purpose data recording systems.
During playback, data is transferred to the DRAM using block reads without intervention from the Linux kernel. The FPGA pulls data from the DRAM and applies equalisers for the receiver and transmitter analogue passbands. The data is then passed to a 16bit DAC clocked at 800MHz. As with the receive hardware, great care is taken to obtaining an extremely low jitter clock to drive the DAC. The output of the DAC is at an IF of 150MHz, which is then mixed to 2.4GHz. The final signal is cleaned up using an identical F-BAR filter to the receive chain.
As with the receiver, a key parameter of the transmit chain is its linearity, as indicated by the IP3 figure. Insufficient IP3 will lead to mixing between the different components of the transmitted signal, effectively increasing the noise floor and generating spurious products. The morephE transmitter achieves a remarkable IP3 of +30dBm at maximum output.
The peak output of the morephE transmitter is limited to just over 0dBm. The reason for this, and the means of adding additional external amplification, are discussed later in the document.
The morephE can also run without the need for a host to be connected. The application plus the control script must be copied onto a USB memory stick. The memory stick is then attached to the morephE USB connector prior to the unit being powered on. When the unit powers up, the Etherstore application will launch and read in the control script. The script may direct the Etherstore application to either playback an existing file or start a new recording.
The GUI permits the recording of data to be started and stopped. The length of recording can be specified prior to the start of recording, or it can be terminated manually, or when the storage capacity is full. Prior to recording data, the receiver frontend attenuation can either be automatically or manually adjusted so that the dynamic range of the receiver is matched to the environment which is to be recorded.
Recorded files are held on an internal 2TB SSD. Multiple files can be stored. Individual files can be deleted. Recording can only take place to contiguous sections of the SSD. A facility is provided to defragment the SSD to maximise the contiguous space prior to starting a new recording.
Recorded files can be transferred to a host via either USB or Ethernet. Due to the potential size of the recorded data files, transfer times can be long. When transferring data via USB, data is transferred at 3x real time. When transferring data via Ethernet, data is transferred at 6x real time. The transferred files can either be raw data or can be equalised to compensate for the receiver analogue passband.
The GUI permits a particular file to be selected from the internal SSD and played back. It is possible to play back just a section of a file by specifying a start time and duration.
A Bluetooth® LE Channel Sounding Application for the moreph30 hardware platform. When used in conjunction with RFcreations programmable switch box it can perform all of the tests set out in the Bluetooth LE Channel Sounding RFPHY test specification and the Channel Sounding Layer test specification. Channel Sounding captures, including raw IQ data, can be exported, and shared with other users. Validate you implementation now, used at the SIG IOP Sessions.
• Support for all RFPHY test cases, including BT=2.0 modulation index.
• Support for all Channel Sounding Layer test cases. These tests are performed using the HCI test command and not via an over-the-air link.
• Simple control via comprehensive GUI or Python/C dll.
• Extensive graphics including:
— 1MHz x 1µs spectrogram of the entire Channel Sounding procedure |
— IQ waveforms of wanted and companion signals
— Demodulated waveforms of wanted and companion signals
— Gated spectra of initiator or reflector
— ToF vs channel sounding step
— Linear phase regression
• Log of all HCI traffic and key events.
• Export of raw IQ data, spectrogram or entire capture to share with other users
• PRE-COMPLIANCE TESTER: Allows the developer to "pre-test" with confidence before committing to test house.
• SILICON EVALUATION: Capture corrupt waveforms for detailed analysis and perform RF-PHY testing on live links.
• SILICON CHARACTERISATION: Eliminates the need for additional test equipment, dramatically reducing test time and increasing throughput.
• RMA ANALYSIS: Simple to use GUI rapidly identifies faults.
• SCRIPTED: Scripted support for all RFPHY test cases and Channel Sounding Layer test cases. Test parameters can be edited to form custom scripts.
• MANUAL: The unit can act either as an initiator or reflector performing an arbitrary Channel Sounding procedure as defined by the user. If a IUT is attached, then HCI event reports are captured and analysed. All key parameters such as ToF, linear phase regression and spectra are calculated. IQ and spectrum data are available for viewing or export.
• CALIBRATE: Permits the amplitude and phase response of the moreph30 to be calibrated.
