Test Fixture Skew Removal for VNA Measurement

For successful high-speed system design, accurate component characterization is essential. The component is often mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB) for the characterization. The removal of the fixture parasitic effects is critical. The fixture skew is one of the parasitic effects which can create false results in the component testing, but it is often ignored. This paper introduces a new fixture skew removal method. To demonstrate its validity, this paper used actual connector test data and the 2x-Thru de-embedding method when the 2x-Thru had excessively large intra-pair skew due to the PCB weave effect.