RF Lumination

Controlling phase array antennas

Markus Lörner, Rohde & Schwarz

Beamforming using phased array antennas is a common technology in the aerospace & defense industry for radar, satellite communication and latest wireless technologies including 5G NR. This session will discuss an easy to use highly integrated beamforming solution to build up efficiently the beamforming front end from the leading industry partner Renasas.

Advanced techniques for phase noise, jitter measurements and residual (additive) phase noise

Markus Lörner, Rohde & Schwarz

Phase noise can be a limiting parameter for many types of systems. As radar precision, data rates and modulation complexity increases, low phase noise oscillators and instrumentation to accurately generate and measure extremely low phase noise has never been more important. We will contrast different phase noise measurement techniques, such as the direct spectrum analyzer-, phase detector- and phase detector with cross correlation. We will introduce a new technique that provides extremely high measurement sensitivity and speed. It allows to measure phase noise as low as -183 dBc/Hz with a 100 MHz carrier frequency and 10 kHz within two minutes. CW, Additive and Pulsed Phase Noise, Pulsed-Additive Phase Noise, and AM Noise measurements can be performed as easily and simultaneously.

Additive phase noise measurements pose additional problems beyond the ones encountered in absolute phase noise measurements. In addition to the issues of diminishing the residual phase noise of the measurement device, 2-port device measurements require the reflection of how to remove (or sufficiently diminish) the impacts of the signal source used to drive the 2-port DUT.

Efficiency enhancements for RF Power Amplifier

Markus Lörner, Rohde & Schwarz

Energy Efficiency, Linearity, Output Power and Bandwidth are the four key technical parameters of the Tx RFFE. The latter three are regulated, but efficiency is the differentiator. As a result, Efficiency Enhancement and Linearization techniques have been the target of much R&D resource for a long time. The workshop begins with a review of linearization techniques, explores the physical limits and concludes with a classification. MISO Transmitters represent an interesting type of Linearization.

The Doherty Amplifier represents the benchmark for energy efficient, quasi-linear, power amplification. We will describe how, measuring the Doherty Amplifier as a dual-input device provides the designer with a hitherto unattainable visibility, enabling them to make the best design choices based on evidence, preparing for volume production with insight.

Simplifying wideband multi-antenna applications with advanced data converter integration

Paul McCormack, Texas Instrument
Markus Lörner, Rohde & Schwarz

Data converters are essential in any RF system such as wideband communications or radar. In many cases, they define the overall system performance. During this session with leading industry partner Texas Instruments, we will review architecture tradeoffs of direct RF sampling vs traditional approaches, and get an update on the latest in integration, bandwidth and capability.

We will have demonstrations of highly integrated AFEs (analog front ends) for wideband multi-antenna applications that cover up to 6-GHz of radio frequency and 1.2-GHz of information bandwidth.

5G mm-wave chipset characterization using on-wafer loadpull

Xianfu Sun, Focus Microwave

As commercial wireless standards move to mmWave frequencies, on-wafer device characterization provides more and more challenges. The biggest hurdle for passive load pull at these higher frequencies is the loss between the tuner and the device under test. Since loss is proportional to electrical distance, these short wavelengths make it difficult to get usable tuning range in the 5G mmWave bands. A new innovative technique is now available to maximize tuning range for on-wafer device characterization, allowing for not only high VSWR tuning but harmonic tuning up to 110GHz.