Testing Your PA Using DPD and UltraWave8G | Teradyne

Wireless Radio Frequency (RF) transmitters typically have a Power Amplifier (PA) connecting the signal chain to an antenna for transmission. Depending upon operating conditions, the PA can introduce non-linear distortions to the signal which results in impairments in the overall transmission integrity (e.g., ACLR and EVM degradation). Generally, there is a trade-off between PA operating in the linear region at the expense of power efficiency vs PA operation with higher power efficiency at the expense of linearity. With a PA operating close to the 1dB compression point, distorted signal measurements and calculations can be made which result in a way to modify the desired signal input to the PA. The net resultant PA output signal is closer to the desired linear output signal by use of Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD). The UltraWave8G provides a mechanism for implementing DPD utilizing Look-Up Tables (LUTs). This DPD method operates on the digital source samples provided to the UltraWaveModulatedSource resulting in a pre-distorted source input to the DUT PA. Subsequent testing can verify linearity at the improved power efficiency operating point due to DPD at the DUT PA output. This paper will explain the use of DPD with the UltraWave8G and provide results from a working example.