am receiver parameter
I have designed, fabricated an IC for a WCDMA RF Receiver front end. The front end consists of a differential LNA followed by a differential mixer.
I am going to use probe station for on die direct porbing. i constructed my pads to be 150 um spaced and GSGSG configuration.
I am now in the phase of measuring the IC. The problem i have almost zero experience in measurement and what makes it worse that i am not the person going to measure it but it will be measured in another university abroad so i need to send them a detailed measurement plan to be done and then they will send me the results.
So i need to measure the following:
1- Gain
2- NF
3- S11 (or S-Parameters)
4- Test for stability
5- IIP2
6- IIP3
7- Port-to-port isloation
that is the most i know, if you know more measurements should be done please let me know.
I do need some guidance in that field, what are the equipments required, what is the test setup, what are the input signals.. so on. I know fully how to make that type of measurements in simulation using Cadence but i never did it in measurement.
Any help will be highly appreciated..
Kindest Regards,
Mostafa
The Most important test for a RX is BER.
You can also add power consumption for completeness.
Good luck
You are right but this is if i a, testing for commercial use and if i have full receiver including digital backend and i have a model of transmitter which is not the case.
I think that for an analog rf front end , it is enough to measure the rf parameters as i stated above.
Thanks a lot for your reply.
Need to do in-band measurements and out of band mesurements like adjecent rejection etc. for blocking requirements.
You may add P1dB too.
Need to check for image rejection, identify any AGC section etc then plan for the test.
Mostafa
if they have the right competences to do the meas, you should not care about that.
You simply have to give them what are expected values, what is source and load impedance you expect they use for signal pins in the proper freq range, and in which condition you would like to have the measurement.
You have made a pretty complete list of parameters, it seems your downconverter is a direct conversion one, so output freq range is below 10 MHz with probably 4 pins (I/Q differential).
I think probe measurement is not really good, a test board could be better.
You forgot to ask for current consumption, I/Q amplitude and phase imbalance (if I my hypotesis is correct).
Generally speaking, the bench you used to test your design in Cadence, has to be reproduced in lab.
I hope it can help.
Mazz
1- Gain
you need tell them your design objective including (power gain or voltage gain with load)
2- NF
NF can be measured only after the gain measured reach or close to your objective.
3- S11 (or S-Parameters)
normally S11 should be less than -10dB, but if your NF/Gain can meet your design objective, it doesn't matter
4- Test for stability
5- IIP2
tell them the frequency point / power you wanted according to the W-cdma standard
6- IIP3
tell them the frequency point / power you wanted according to the W-cdma standard
7- Port-to-port isloation
So, you finished to design and to fabricate an RFIC receiver but you don?t have any clue about RF measurements?
I am wondering how did you design the circuit without these knowledge?s, when actually they are very well interconnected.
Always I said that a good RFIC designer shall be a good RF system engineer, a good RF Application engineer and a good RF test engineer?all together.
i will begin with the Equipment u gonna need
1) Vector Network Analyzer
2) Spectrum analyzer
3) 2 signal sources for IIP3 and IIP2 measurmensts
4) Noise source and Noise figure meter
5) Baluns specially ur circuits are balanced.
6) bias Tees to bias your IC
test 1 The Gain S parameters stability
this can be done by using the VNA will measure S21 which is the gain , and S11 and S22
sure u need a frequency translation option in the VNA to measure the gain of the mixer.
the Noise source and Noise figure meter
used to measure the NF of the LNA and Mixer aldo can be used to measure the NF of the total front end "also it must be frequency translation enabled"
the IIP3 u need a power combiner so u can apply 2 tones on the input of the receiver , and u need a Spectrum analyzer to be able to get the IM3 products then u will be able to calculate the IIP3
u need to check the application notes on www.agilent.com
www.anritsu.com about RF measurments
if you need anything about the mesurments
u can contact me directly. even if u want we can meet and disscuss things
Wish this help you
khouly
can anyone tell me how can we generate lte wimax signal i.e the ofdma or the scfdma signals on cadence. it is possible on cadence because usually front ends for the receiver and transmitter are designed on cadence so for testing purpose we need those signals. plz help me. thnx in advance.