Rohde & Schwarz presents its top-notch RF and microwave test solutions at the EuMW 2024 in Paris Premier microwave, RF, wireless and radar players gather in the city of light for the European Microwave Week (EuMW). Industry-leading T&M specialist Rohde & Schwarz will present a radiating portfolio of products and solutions in Paris for various application fields, pushing the limits in the Gigahertz to Terahertz frequency ranges. Paris is host city of the EuMW 2024
Rohde & Schwarz will showcase its latest RF and microwave portfolio and solutions following the motto From Gigahertz to Terahertz at this year's European Microwave Week in Paris. At the exhibition, taking place from September 24 to 26, 2024 in the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles venue, visitors can learn at booth 401L about the company's top-notch applications to solve pressing test challenges RF engineers are facing right now in component design and next generation wireless, as well as in the automotive and aerospace and defense industries. Highlights will include EVM measurements and wideband modulated load pull analysis for RF frontends. A system for 6G wireless data transmission based on photonics will address state-of-the-art research for next generation wireless technologies. And disruptive innovations in automotive radar production and testing as well as industry leading-solutions for 5G NTN satellite testing will round out the company's display at the EuMW 2024.
Wide spectrum of RF and microwave component testing
Active components such as power amplifiers are integral for any RF frontend design. With increasing data rates, complex modulation schemes are becoming critical in wireless connectivity applications. A low error vector magnitude (EVM) at both the component and system levels is key to ensuring that these modulation schemes are robust and stable. Given the unprecedented performance levels of these power amplifiers, EVM measurements are a challenging task in RF frontend design. Rohde & Schwarz will present at the EuMW its updated R&S SMW200A vector signal generator which comes with enhanced performance and unparalleled flexibility to meet the most demanding EVM requirements ideal for power amplifier verification. Equipped with the new linearize RF path software option, the signal generator enables better EVM/ACLR at high output power with digital pre-distortion-based optimization. The high-end instrument perfectly matches the industry-leading R&S FSW signal and spectrum analyzer. At the EuMW, however, the setup features the powerful R&S FSVA3000 on the analysis side, including its unique IQ noise cancellation software-based feature to achieve outstanding EVM measurement performance thanks to a noise corrected measurement path.
Besides EVM, power amplifier efficiency is key in RF frontend design. The RF frontend drives signals into an antenna for wireless transmissions in its intended application. These antennas are designed to have a nominal impedance of 50 Ohms. However, due to their wide frequency coverage, the actual impedance can often deviate significantly from 50 Ohms. The impedance encountered by the RF frontend greatly influences its performance, while the influence on its performance and efficiency is unpredictable. Therefore, its crucial to verify the performance across a range of impedance variations. To ensure the power amplifier's target specifications like minimized power consumption or optimized modulation performance, wideband modulated load pull analysis is a vital method for characterizing nonlinear devices. At the EuMW, Rohde & Schwarz will demonstrate a new setup for wideband modulated load pull, featuring the R&S SMW200A vector signal generator in combination with the R&S RTP164 oscilloscope. With this setup, RF engineers can verify the system level performance of the RF frontend with different impedances and verify KPIs such as gain, EVM and ACLR across varying impedance conditions.
For high-throughput RF component verification, Rohde & Schwarz demonstrates for the first time the PVT360A performance vector tester equipped with a new high-power option. The single-box tester combines two independent vector signal generators and vector signal analyzers in one instrument and provides outstanding measurement speed, making it ideal for characterization and production environments. The new option will provide up to 20 dBm RMS output power, making it well-equipped for any applications where high input power to the DUT is required or where high losses can be expected. It now covers a frequency range up to 8.5 GHz for additional potential frequency bands for the lower parts of 5G NR FR3 (7.125 GHz to 24.25 GHz). At the EuMW, visitors can get a first glimpse of the upgraded instrument version, which will be available soon.
Also measuring jitter for clocks in high-speed digital designs is addressed at the Rohde & Schwarz booth. With increasing data rates, the limits for overall system jitter become ever tighter, especially for the various components of the clock tree. Phase noise analyzers are the instruments of choice for verifying the jitter performance of clocks. With the R&S FSWP, Rohde & Schwarz will demonstrate at the EuMW the best phase noise analyzer on the market, featuring highest sensitivity. It is ideal for super low phase noise and jitter measurements even at frequencies above 50 GHz as needed for common electrical interface OIF CEI-224G (56 GHz) or ultra-fast LAN IEEE 802.3dj (53 GHz). At EuMW, it is shown analyzing beyond 50 GHz with cross correlation, achieving most accurate results that reflect the true DUT performance.
Another demo will cover intermodulation (IM) measurements for 6G D band components. When characterizing components for tomorrow's 6G communications systems, developers have to test the intermodulation of the active device in addition to
