Broadband Error Vector Magnitude Characterization of a GaN Power Amplifier using a Vector Network Analyzer

Angelotti, Alberto Maria; Gibiino, Gian Piero; Florian, Corrado; Santarelli, Alberto

doi:10.1109/ims30576.2020.9223771

Cited by 20 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…In this respect, the secants' method shows better performance in terms of convergence speed, given that the number of iterations is comparable to the other methods despite the distortion-induced mutual couplings among the tones, while the number of evaluations is significantly less. The independence of the number or evaluations from the number of tones in secants' case is particularly significant when considering broadband standardlike excitations, as multitones test signals with hundreds or thousands of tones are required to approximate the original standard to a good degree of accuracy [8], [11], [13], [16], [17].…”

Section: Walp Methods' Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, the setup is capable of working up to the full BW of the instrument front-ends, with arbitrarily narrow tone spacing. These characteristics are typically required in order to perform WALP using multitone signals featuring a good statistical and spectral approximation of the target telecom signal envelope [8], [12], [17]. In the proposed setup, the minimum achievable tone spacing is ultimately limited by the maximum allowed measurement time, available instrument memory, source phase noise, and thermal drifts.…”

Section: Measurement Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast to flat-amplitude multitones, such excitations present noise-like characteristics even in the excited band, where sharp dips in the A 1 (and B 2 ) amplitude can be present even in excited inband components for a given realization. In this light, randomphase flat-amplitude multitones, which can likewise be tailored to properly approximate 5G signals [14], [17], seem to have a definite advantage in terms of dynamic range.…”

Section: B Considerations On 5g-ofdm-like Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…10. In some applications, however, the tone spacing might influence the long-term memory behaviour of the DUT [17] and cannot be set freely by the user. In that case, the dynamic range of the setup has to be extended either using lower noise HW components or by reducing the IF BW and exploiting coherent averaging techniques.…”

Section: B Considerations On 5g-ofdm-like Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wideband Active Load–Pull by Device Output Match Compensation Using a Vector Network Analyzer

Angelotti

Gibiino

Nielsen

et al. 2021

IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Techn.

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This work investigates wideband active load-pull (WALP) on microwave electron devices with a standard vector network analyzer (VNA), solely using calibrated frequencydomain relative measurements. Differently from the methods requiring full time-domain waveform acquisition capabilities, this approach removes any instantaneous bandwidth (BW) requirement, allowing to target modulated signals with arbitrarily large BWs. A VNA-based measurement setup is presented, and a novel mathematical framework is developed in order to enable the synthesis of an arbitrary wideband load profile using suitable numerical algorithms. A linear pre-compensation of the LS output match of the device, here implemented by different methods, is shown to significantly improve the speed and the stability of the basic secants' iterative method used to reach the target. Performance results, investigating the convergence properties of the approach and the effects of the setup dynamic range, are reported for a Gallium Nitride (GaN) high-electronmobility-transistor (HEMT) for up to 120-MHz output BW in the sub-6 GHz range.Index Terms-Active load-pull, modulated signals, power amplifiers, vector network analyzer, device characterization. I. INTRODUCTIONT HE ever-growing demand for high data rates in modern mobile communication standards, e.g., 5G, requires the operation of power amplifiers (PA) in radio frequency (RF) transmitters across extremely wide bandwidths (BWs), i.e., tens or hundreds of MHz. In this respect, novel characterization techniques are required to evaluate the behaviour of electron devices used in PA circuits under operating conditions that closely approximate typical telecom applications. Wideband active load-pull (WALP) has been proposed as a promising technique to characterize microwave transistors and to optimize PA performance using excitations that mimic typical communication standards [1]-[4]. The method allows to set, for a given device-under-test (DUT), a user-prescribed load reflection coefficient profile across a wide modulation BW at fundamental and harmonic frequencies. The approach, at the cost of increased complexity, overcomes the main disadvantages of traditional passive load-pull. WALP can provide full coverage of the Smith Chart compensating for insertion loss, and can extend the narrow relative BW due to delay

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Section: Walp Methods' Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Measurement Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Considerations On 5g-ofdm-like Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Considerations On 5g-ofdm-like Signalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Wideband Active Load–Pull by Device Output Match Compensation Using a Vector Network Analyzer

Angelotti

Gibiino

Nielsen

et al. 2021

IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Techn.

Self Cite

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“…where α a = 1.96, β a = 0.99, α φ = 2.53, and β φ = 2.82 are considered in the experiments according to [37]. To measure the distortion intensity, the error vector magnitude (EVM) is used in this paper, which is expressed as [38] EVM…”

Section: A Parameter Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

ELM-Based Frame Synchronization in Nonlinear Distortion Scenario Using Superimposed Training

et al. 2021

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The requirement of high spectrum efficiency puts forward higher requirements on frame synchronization (FS) in wireless communication systems. Meanwhile, a large number of nonlinear devices or blocks will inevitably cause nonlinear distortion. To avoid the occupation of bandwidth resources and overcome the difficulty of nonlinear distortion, an extreme learning machine (ELM)-based network is introduced into the superimposed training-based FS with nonlinear distortion. Firstly, a preprocessing procedure is utilized to reap the features of synchronization metric (SM). Then, based on the rough features of SM, an ELM network is constructed to estimate the offset of frame boundary. The analysis and experiment results show that, compared with existing methods, the proposed method can improve the error probability of FS and bit error rate (BER) of symbol detection (SD). In addition, this improvement has its robustness against the impacts of parameter variations.

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Combined Wideband Active Load-Pull and Modulation Distortion Characterization with a Vector Network Analyzer

Angelotti

Gibiino

Santarelli

et al. 2021

2021 97th ARFTG Microwave Measurement Conference (ARFTG)

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Broadband Error Vector Magnitude Characterization of a GaN Power Amplifier using a Vector Network Analyzer

Cited by 20 publications

References 8 publications

Wideband Active Load–Pull by Device Output Match Compensation Using a Vector Network Analyzer

Wideband Active Load–Pull by Device Output Match Compensation Using a Vector Network Analyzer

ELM-Based Frame Synchronization in Nonlinear Distortion Scenario Using Superimposed Training

Combined Wideband Active Load-Pull and Modulation Distortion Characterization with a Vector Network Analyzer

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