RFmx Licensing Guide

Updated Aug 31, 2023

Reported In

Hardware

  • PXI Vector Signal Analyzer
  • PXI Vector Signal Transceiver
  • PXI Vector Signal Generator

Software

  • RFmx

Operating System

  • Windows

Issue Details

I currently have some of Nationals Instruments Radio Frequency (RF) devices and wanted to know what is included in the RFmx driver and what requires a separate license?

Solution

RFmx provides signal generation and analysis for general-purpose, connectivity, cellular, and aerospace/defense test applications. The installation of the driver can include any of the following software:
  • RFmx Waveform Creator*
  • RFmx SpecAn
  • RFmx Demod** (For newer versions, available as RFmx Digital Modulation, RFmx Analog Modulation. Please see the notes below)
  • RFmx Noise Figure***
  • RFmx Phase Noise***
  • RFmx WLAN
  • RFmx for Bluetooth® Test
  • RFmx NR
  • RFmx LTE
  • RFmx WCDMA
  • RFmx TD-SCDMA
  • RFmx EV-DO
  • RFmx CDMA2k
  • RFmx GSM
  • RFmx Analysis Only 
  • RFmx Power Amplifier***
  • RFmx Pulse
Everything within this list will require a license except RFmx Waveform Creator, RFmx Demod**, and the RFmx SpecAn***. 

Notes:
*Without any separate licenses, the RFmx Waveform Creator will only allow the creation of basic waveforms, such as AM and FM. In order to get access to the RF Cellular / Connectivity Standards which include more advanced features (WLAN, Bluetooth, LTE, etc.), you will need to purchase its respective license. 

**Since RFmx 20.7, RFmx Demod is available as RFmx Digital Modulation and RFmx Analog Modulation and requires a separate license for analog and digital modulation use cases.

***RFmx Noise Figure and RFmx Phase Noise require licenses despite they exist under RFmx SpecAn. Similarly, since RFmx 20.7, RFmx Power Amplifier (for DPD, AMPM, Programmatic CFR, PxdB Compression measurements​) requires a separate license too.