Chemical Mechanical Polishing, (CMP), pads made of polyurethane material are utilized in the Integrated Circuit, (IC), industry to planarize wafers between successive process steps. The properties of such pads and their behavior must be known in order to determine under what conditions and for how long they can be used efficiently. This research involved the development of a system to study the properties of such pads. The system developed during this research enabled the pads to be tested under varying physical conditions. The setup used a combination of several instruments to provide excitation to the pad and acquire a measure its response. A central computer controlled the instrumentation system employed. In this research the determination of the physical properties of CMP pads was accomplished through the use of Ultra Sound testing. Ultra sound methods offer a non-destructive method of characterizing pads to be used in the production of IC wafers. Ultra sound characterization is currently one of the most widely used techniques utilized for non-destructive inspection. This report provides a detailed account of the hardware instruments involved and the method of integration of those instruments into a system that could easily, rapidly and accurately characterize CMP pads. The pad response was measured in terms of the signal voltage transmitted through the pad to the ultrasound sensor. The software stored these readings for every set of testing conditions. Changing the temperature, humidity and depth from the pad's surface where measurements are made changed the test conditions. These data were analyzed statistically to determine the behavior of the pad. This research was part of a larger research effort that provided the statistical tool required to determine the uniformity of a CMP pad.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This article presents a measurement system based on the RS-485 interface. The presented system is an alternative solution for distributed measurement systems, which cannot be built using IEEE-488 interface due to distance limitation between elements of the system. The RS-485 interface is a base for communication between measurement instruments and uses a Master-Slave protocol to exchange data between them. One dedicated master device, usually a PC, controls all slave devices connected to the interface. To control measurement devices SCPI language is used. This solution simplifies communication between measurement devices and allows utilizing the HP-VEE environment to control any SCPI devices connected to the RS-485 network.

The aim of this work is to design a communication module for laboratory source Manson. This power supply communicates only through a serial RS-232 link. Modern computers usually use for the connection with other peripherals mainly USB. Designed communication module contains converter between the RS-232 and USB. Power supply is used in the automated measurement setup, which is controlled from the Virtual Engineering Environment from the Agilent Technologies. Direct commands for laboratory source Manson are not compatible with the SCPI (Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments) standard commands. So, the communication module converts commands from the SCPI format to Manson supply instructions. The communication with the Manson supply will be obvious for students by using new communication module.

This thesis contains design of beamforming network designed for passive radar antennas. The first part contains theory of passive radars and beamforming networks. The next part implies design of beamforming network at the block digram level. Then are choosed circuits for amplitude and phase control, including the design of control communication. It follows by realization of IQ phase shifter and his automatic measurement. Based on this results is phase shifter adjusted and PCB of 2x2 beamforming network is designed. Last part includes design of control application (Matlab) and control program for STM32F407VG microcontroller.

This master's thesis describes functionality and principle of the Hefaistos measurement system, which is fully automated and modular. Its purpose is to measure frequency responses of materials and its temperature dependence. The thesis describes all the necessary parts of the modular measurement system. Main part of this system is the control application programmed in LabVIEW software environment. Another necessary parts are impedance analyzers for acquiring frequency dependencies and heating chambers for heating measured materials. The control application ensures hardware synchronization between impedance analyzers and heating chambers. Together they create the Hefaistos system. Modularity of the system means that a user may choose which instrument combination will be used. The system offers choice between three impedance analyzers Agilent 4294A, Wayne Kerr 6520B and HIOKI 3532 LCR Hi-Tester and two heating chambers AOIP GEMINI 700 LRI and AOIP HYPERION. Possibilities of the Hefaistos system are demonstrated on the results of an example measurement.

The aim of this thesis was to develop user interface in LabVIEW to make typical measurements with spectral analyzer HP89410A There is introduced the theory of operation of an analogue heterodyne and a digital FFT spectral analyzer. It is explained the background of the Fast Fourier Transform. There are discussed the key settings in measuring with FTT analyzer, like window function, bandwidth, number of frequency points, or the averaging. Further is described the program, which was developed for measuring frequency characteristic by white noise and by stepped measurement. It was also made a module for measuring Signal to Noise Ratio and module for Total Harmonic Distortion. In the last part of this thesis are shown the results of processed exemplar measurements.