skip to main content
10.1145/1233501.1233543acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesiccadConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Enhanced error vector magnitude (EVM) measurements for testing WLAN transceivers

Published: 05 November 2006 Publication History

Abstract

As wireless LAN devices become more prevalent in the consumer electronics market, there is an ever increasing pressure to reduce their overall cost. The test cost of such devices is an appreciable percentage of the overall cost, which typically results from the high number of specifications, the high number of distinct test set-ups and equipment pieces that need to be used, and the high cost of each test set-up. In this paper, we investigate the versatility of EVM measurements to test the variable-envelope WLAN (Wireless Local Area Networks) receiver and transmitter characteristics. The goal is to optimize EVM test parameters (input data and test limits) and to reduce the number of specification measurements that require high test times and/or expensive test equipment. Our analysis shows that enhanced EVM measurements(optimized data sequence and limits, use of RMS, scale, and phase error vector values) in conjunction with a set of simple path measurements (input-output impedances) can provide the desired fault coverage while eliminating lengthy spectrum mask and noise figure tests

References

[1]
IEEE 802.11a Standard. http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/, 1999.
[2]
E. Acar and S. Ozev. Defect-Based RF Testing Using a New Catastrophic Fault Model. In IEEE ITC, Nov 2005.
[3]
E. Acar and S. Ozev. Parametric Test Development for RF Circuits Targeting Physical Fault Locations and Using Specification-Based Fault Definitions. In ICCAD, Nov 2005.
[4]
D. Brown, J. Ferrario, R. Wolf, J. Li, and J. Bhagat. RF Testing on a Mixed Signal Tester. In IEEE International Test Conference, pages 793--800, 2004.
[5]
A. Georgiadis. Gain, phase imbalance, and phase noise effects on error vector magnitude. In IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, pages 443--449, March 2004.
[6]
Q. Gu. RF System Design of Transceivers for Wireless Communications. Springer, 2005.
[7]
J. P. d. Gyvez, G. Gronthoud, and R. Amine. VDD ramp testing for RF circuits. pages 651--658, 2003. IEEE International Test Conference.
[8]
A. Halder and A. Chatterjee. Low-cost alternate EVM test for wireless receiver systems. In VLSI Test Symposium, pages 255--260, May 2005.
[9]
M. Helfenstein, E. Baykal, K. Muller, and A. Lampe. Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) Measurements for GSM/EDGE Applications Revised under Production Conditions. In IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, pages 5003 - 5006, May 2005.
[10]
H. Ku and J. Kenney. Estimation of error vector magnitude using two-tone intermodulation distortion measurements. In International Microwave Symposium, pages 17--20, May 2001.
[11]
T. Lee. The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
[12]
F.-L. Lin, S.-F. Chen, L.-F. Chen, and H.-R. Chuang. Computer simulation and measurement of error vector magnitude (EVM) and adjacent-channel power ratio (ACPR) for digital wireless communication RF power amplifiers. In Vehicular Technology Conference, pages 2024--2028, Sept 1999.
[13]
B. Razavi. RF Microelectronics. Prentice-Hall, 1998.
[14]
E. Silva, J. Pineda de Gyvez, and G. Gronthoud. Functional vs. multi-VDD testing of RF circuits. pages 412--420, 2005. IEEE International Conference Test.
[15]
S. Yamanouchi, K. Kunihiro, and H. Hida. An Efficient Algorithm for Simulating Error Vector Magnitude in Nonlinear OFDM Amplifiers. In IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, pages 129--132, 2004.
[16]
L. Zhang, D. Heaton, and H. Largey. Low Cost Multisite Testing of Quadruple Band GSM transceivers. In IEEE International Test Conference, 2005.

Cited By

View all
  • (2009)Low-cost characterization and calibration of RF integrated circuits through I-Q data analysisIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2009.202071828:7(993-1005)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2009

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences
ICCAD '06: Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/ACM international conference on Computer-aided design
November 2006
147 pages
ISBN:1595933891
DOI:10.1145/1233501
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 05 November 2006

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Qualifiers

  • Article

Conference

ICCAD06
Sponsor:

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 457 of 1,762 submissions, 26%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)9
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1
Reflects downloads up to 07 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2009)Low-cost characterization and calibration of RF integrated circuits through I-Q data analysisIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2009.202071828:7(993-1005)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2009

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media