Measurement of Electronic Component Impedance Using a Vector Network Analyzer

Electrical impedance is an important parameter used to describe individual electrical circuit components or a circuit as a whole. Impedance is a complex number, in which the real part is represented by resistance and the imaginary part is represented by reactance. The vector network analyzer (VNA) has recently become a powerful tool for analyzing impedance in a broad band, which partially covers the GHz region. One- and two-port circuits for S-parameter measurements allow the user to determine the impedance from milliohms to tens of kilohms using known relationships between the values. The sources of error in such measurements are the analyzer itself and the DUT fixture.

This whitepaper describes only those limitations associated with the analyzer, assuming that appropriate de-embedding techniques can minimize the influence of the fixture and thus help to achieve the required measurement stability.