Electronic Design

David Hall

David A. Hall is a senior product marketing manager at National Instruments, where he is responsible for RF and wireless test hardware and software products. His job functions include educating customers on RF test techniques, product management, and developing product demos. His areas of expertise include instrumentation architecture, digital signal processing, and test techniques for cellular and wireless connectivity devices. He holds a bachelor of science degree with honors in computer engineering from Penn State University.

Articles by David Hall

Understanding Signal Analyzer Architectures

The three-stage superheterodye vector signal analyzer uses a reasonably straightforward architecture to cleanly downconvert signals from RF to IF. Understanding these architectures will help you to understand how to optimize your VSA for making challenging measurements such as intermodulation distortion.

VNAs: The Myth, The Mystery, The Electromagnetics

VNAs are unique stimulus-response instruments that can make extremely accurate RF power and phase measurements by accounting for various sources of systematic error, the largest of which is electromagnetic reflections.

What’s Inside Your RF Signal Analyzer?

David Hall outlines the basic circuits in an RF signal analyzer and discusses their operation and characteristics.

Instrumentation’s Role Grows In New “Embedded” Applications

The transition from primarily analog to primarily digital architectures has made many “problems” solvable with an RF signal analyzer. And with the reduction in size and new form factors such as PXI, these RF instruments are portable enough to be practical in field applications.

Instrumentation Improves Microwave System Simulation

National Instruments' David Hall shows you how to augment microwave spectrum analysis with PC-based test equipment, model extraction, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations to improve your wireless design process.

Modulation, Symbols, And Bits: Building Your Wireless Vocabulary

Have you ever heard terms like modulation scheme, OFDM, or symbol rate and scratched your head? As new wireless standards emerge, we get excited about the higher data rates they afford. Yet most people, even engineers, who get excited about these new technologies don’t truly understand why the new generation is better than the last.