Evaluation Engineering - 10

5G TEST

Sponsored by

6G THz applications with an external
down-converter. "
Mentor, a Siemens Business, addresses
5G test with its X-STEP product portfolio, which Harri Valasma, director of 5G
solutions, described as the most mature
and widely used 5G fronthaul tester that
works in O-RAN and JESD204B/C interfaces. " The product portfolio also includes
virtual products for simulation and HW
emulation, '' he said, adding that X-STEP
is the market's only JESD204C real-time
tester supporting up to 32G line rates.
" Overall RF testing is hard in 5G, so
testing with digital interfaces (O-RAN
and JESD204) makes it much easier to
test all possible Release 16 and Release 17
cases with different kinds of existing and
future antenna/frequency technologies
and combinations, " Valasma said. " The

O-RAN compatibility issues will continue
to grow when more network slicing solutions are taken into use, and X-STEP can
handle all possible scenarios. "
Anritsu is addressing 5G on several fronts. First, it has enhanced its
SmartStudio NR (SSNR) MX800070A control software to support 5G-device Evolved
Packet System (EPS) fallback tests using
the Radio Communication Test Station
MT8000A. With the new EPS fallback
functionality, the MT8000A/SSNR environment simplifies evaluation and reduces
cost-of-test when verifying 5G New Radio
(NR) UE being developed for emerging applications. In addition, Anritsu added support for different radio-access technologies
(RATs) within various deployments, such
as non-standalone (NSA) and standalone
(SA). " This is crucial as operators have

Mentor X-STEP V for 5G fronthaul testing.
Courtesy of Mentor, a Siemens Business
Anritsu SmartStudio NR control software.

Courtesy of Anritsu

EVALUATION ENGINEERING NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

begun to roll out SA in several markets, "
commented Adnan Khan, senior manager,
wireless and wireline market development.
According to Steve Dudkiewicz, vice
president, marketing and business development at Maury Microwave, the
company is seeing a growing demand
for device characterization and modeling solutions above 28 GHz to support
applications such as 5G FR2, automotive
radar, and next-generation semiconductor technology evaluation. " These applications are not only driving frequencies
higher, but are also pushing the envelope
on modulation bandwidths, " he said. " To
address these challenges, our state-of-theart semiconductor test solutions push the
boundaries of load pull with extreme
modulation bandwidths, as well as expanded frequency coverage to 1.1 THz. "
Dudkiewicz added that 5G will unlock
new levels of mobile communication performance with high speeds, low latencies,
and ultrahigh reliability-enabled in part
by the FR2 frequency bands around 28
GHz and 38 GHz, with channel bandwidths in the hundreds of MHz. " These
bandwidths pose a challenge for passive
impedance tuners, where the phase variation over frequency results in the loss of
impedance control and degrades ACPR,
EVM, and PAE performance when using
wideband modulated signals, " he said. " To
overcome this challenge, we designed the
MT2000 mixed-signal active load pull system, which corrects for impedance phase
variations and allows users to set arbitrary impedances over a bandwidth of up
to 1,000 MHz at frequencies up to 40 GHz.
With wideband impedance control, we
can now synthesize the load conditions
presented by realistic matching networks
and antennas and accurately characterize the vector-corrected performance of
a DUT. "
To achieve this capability, he said, " We
designed the MT2000 from the ground up
as a standalone one-box solution, which
replaces the functions of a vector network
analyzer, vector signal generator, vector
signal analyzer, and automated impedance tuners, thereby reducing the overall
system cost and complexity while simultaneously ensuring an excellent measurement accuracy. " Additional features

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Evaluation Engineering

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