Development of RF attenuation measurement standard using VNA

Development of RF attenuation standard using a commercial VNA is presented. Linearity of the VNA is measured and evaluated in detail for determining attenuation measurement ability and accuracy. An effective procedure to ensure the traceability to the attenuation primary standard is demonstrated by simply performing calibration on a single frequency. The nonlinearity of 0.001 dB for measurements up to 20 dB, 0.01 dB for 40 dB and 0.03 dB for 60 dB at 100 MHz, 1 GHz and 3 GHz are obtained.