Description:
The 16334A is a tweezers contact test fixture from Keysight (originally Agilent), designed as a direct-attachment front end for 4-terminal-pair LCR meters and impedance analyzers. It belongs to the accessory family that turns a bench instrument into a working measurement station: a tweezer-type probe that grips leadless surface-mount components — chip capacitors, chip resistors, chip inductors — and connects them to the instrument’s UNKNOWN terminals.
What makes 16334A distinct from a bench fixture like the 16034E is that the component comes to the probe rather than the probe to the component. The tweezer tips are spring-actioned, their spacing is continuously adjustable to match the DUT terminal pitch, and the tips themselves are replaceable. A compensation block is supplied as standard, so open and short compensation can be performed to cancel residual impedance and stray admittance before any real measurement is taken. It covers 5 Hz to 15 MHz, handles up to ±42 V peak (AC + DC), and is the fixture engineers reach for when components are too small, too loose or too densely packed on a board to be placed into a conventional holder.
Application Scenarios:
A power electronics design team is characterizing the DC-bias behaviour of a 0603 X7R multilayer ceramic capacitor for a 48 V server power supply. The problem is well known in the industry: an MLCC’s capacitance collapses as DC bias rises, and the datasheet curves rarely match the specific part actually on the board. The team needs measured C-V and ESR data on real samples, at 1 kHz, 100 kHz and 1 MHz, with up to 40 V of DC bias applied — and they need it on dozens of candidate parts before the layout freezes.
Soldering every candidate onto a test coupon is slow and changes the part’s thermal history. Hand-held probes give unrepeatable contact. The 16334A solves the sampling problem directly: the engineer picks a loose component out of the reel with the tweezers, performs open and short compensation against the supplied compensation block, then measures the part in seconds. Because the fixture maintains a 4-terminal-pair configuration from the BNC connectors all the way to the top of the tweezers, low-impedance parameters like ESR stay meaningful rather than being swamped by lead and contact resistance. Dozens of parts can be swept in an afternoon, and the resulting C-V curve goes straight into the SPICE model.
The same pattern shows up everywhere small components must be measured quickly and repeatedly: incoming inspection spot-checks on MLCC reels at an EMS line, failure analysis labs checking whether a cracked capacitor on a returned board really drifted, RF engineers sorting 0402 inductors by self-resonant frequency, battery and connector manufacturers measuring contact resistance on small welded tabs, and university device labs characterizing thin-film and MEMS structures where wire bonding would destroy the sample.
Parameter:
| Parameter | Value / Description |
|---|---|
| Product Model | 16334A |
| Manufacturer | Keysight Technologies (formerly Agilent Technologies) |
| Product Category | Tweezers contact test fixture — SMD / leadless component measurement accessory |
| Terminal Configuration | 4-terminal pair from the BNC connectors to the top of the tweezers (tweezer tips excluded); DUT connection is 2-terminal — the 4TP architecture is what keeps low-impedance readings honest |
| Measurement Frequency Range | 5 Hz to 15 MHz — covers audio through HF; wide enough for ESR, capacitance and self-resonance work on chip passives |
| Maximum Voltage | ±42 V peak maximum (AC + DC) — supports DC bias sweeps on MLCCs within the fixture’s own rating |
| Minimum DUT Size | 1.6 (L) × 0.8 (W) mm — the 1608 / 0603 metric class; maximum terminal spacing ≤ 10 mm |
| Tweezer Tip Adjustment | Continuously adjustable spacing to match DUT terminal pitch; tips are replaceable, part number 16334-09002 (two required) |
| Compensation | Supplied compensation block, part number 16334-60001, used for open and short compensation to minimize residual impedance and stray admittance |
| Additional Measurement Error | Proportional error ±2 × (f/10)² percent, where f is in MHz — roughly ±2% at 10 MHz, and negligible at audio and low-kHz frequencies, which is why the fixture is at its best for ESR and capacitance work |
| Cable Length & Weight | Approximately 1 m from BNC connectors to the top of the tweezers; approximately 290 g — light enough for sustained hand-held use under a microscope |
| Environmental & Compliance | Operating temperature 0 °C to 55 °C; designed for use with 4TP LCR meters and impedance analyzers; applicable instruments include E4980A/AL, E4981A, E4990A, 4284A, 4285A, 4294A, 4263B, 4278A, 4279A, 4268A, 4288A, 4192A and 4194A |
