Product

Overview

Rohde & Schwarz offers a compact and innovative solution for characterizing power amplifiers with envelope tracking (ET) using the R&S®SMW200A vector signal generator and the R&S®FSW signal and spectrum analyzer, effectively replacing complex test setups. Power Amplifiers (PAs) are traditionally operated with a constant supply voltage. PAs are most efficient, if they work near its maximum output power. Considering a varying RF signal (like in particular for TD-LTE and LTE FDD) a significant portion of the energy is dissipated as heat in the PA. Envelope Tracking is a technique to improve efficiency of PAs by modulating the DC supply according to the envelope of the I/Q-signal. As a result the PA is working in the efficient regions most of the time which translates in improved device battery times and increased end user experience.

Parameter

Features and Benefits
Advantages over alternative solutions are the following:

•The unique feature of the R&S®SMW200A Envelope Tracking SW option is the ability to generate RF and envelope signal in real-time out of one box: This enables fully reproducible measurements without additional (time consuming) synchronization procedure.

•Envelope generation and shaping is applied in real-time. This approach offers not only a speed advantage to comparable solutions, it also enables the user to duplicate the exact behavior of a real UE.

•Full characterization of the amplifier in one measurement: the R&S®FSW can perform all RF parameters in one shot, including spectral measurements (e.g. ACLR) as well as signal quality measurements (e.g. EVM).

•Simultaneous acquisition of RF data and two baseband signals: with simultaneous voltage and current measurement, the R&S®FSW computes instantaneous PAE on sample basis. Instantaneous PAE enables the user to easily adapt his envelope shaping.

•Pre-distortion Functionality:

With the FSW Amplifier Characterization software the AM/AM and AM/PM conversion of the amplifier can be characterized. This information can be automatically loaded to the R&S®SMW200A and the values are applied in real-time to the IQ signal for pre-distortion. No recalculation of the original IQ file is required.