suggestions needed for compact X-band signal generator

I am designing a microwave test equipment that needs a low-noise X-band signal source (8GHz to 12.4GHz). The equipment is supposed to be portable, so a compact source is preferred over the bulky signal generator found in the lab. Could anyone give some suggestion on building up such a source? Thanks.

You'll surely guess that the bulky design of lab instruments is somehow related to it's performance and versatility. You can get many of it's properties in a compact design, but most likely no all at once. Not actually knowing your requirements let me hint to a VCO module that is offering the questioned frequency range. http://www.rfmd.com/CS/Documents/RFVC1800DS.pdf

Look at this company. I don't know if they go up that high, but they have
good products.

http://www.holzworth.com/index.htm

Cheers

what frequency step size, spurious, phase noise do you need. Is there any vibration, power supply noise/spikes? Desired cost at what quantity?

Yes, much depends from your design requirements; however you could evaluated this USB programmable generator (I found it just googling: never tried it).

http://vaunix.com/products/lms-signa...r/overview.cfm

Thanks FvM. Yes, the "bulky" signal source has a reason to be big and expensive... But I like your link. It is a good thing to think about.

The frequency step size should be around 1MHz, and 0dBm output power should be a reasonable number to work with. I don't know about the requirement of phase noise since the system is not up yet, but should be as low as possible.

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The frequency step size should be around 1MHz, and 0dBm output power should be a reasonable number to work with. I don't know about the requirement of phase noise since the system is not up yet, but should be as low as possible. Not sure about power noise either, but I suspect it is there. No cost evaluation is being done at the moment, but I guess S2000 or less is a guess, as long as it provides good performance.

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Thanks for the link. I will have a look at those USB powered devices.