AGILENT Technologies has announced the newest release of its W1716 Digital Pre-Distortion Builder software, which creates an interactive RF/baseband platform for 4G modelling.
The W1716 DPD software is designed to enable the high levels of wireless performance necessary for emerging wideband standards such as LTE-Advanced and IEEE 802.11ac.
To create the 4G modelling platform, the software links the user’s baseband DPD algorithms with trusted wideband test equipment, standard references and RF EDA software.
Armed with higher confidence in real-world performance, designers can now accelerate deployment of emerging communications chipsets, base stations and transceivers.
DPD technology helps address challenges in system performance and battery life for the wireless industry’s data-intensive communications formats. It has been widely adopted in existing 3G and WLAN systems.
Wireless system design, however, has been challenged with new standards exceeding 100 MHz of spectrum to achieve 1 Gb/s data rates, since this progress has made new bandwidth and linearity requirements harder to meet.
To address this dilemma, Agilent enhanced its W1716 DPD software and linked it to Agilent PXI Modular instruments to enable a wideband stimulus/response platform for interactive DPD modeling of emerging and 4G wireless systems.
The hardware/software platform integrates:
- Advanced, 4G-ready DPD algorithms for both PA modelling and pre-distortion.
- A step-by-step DPD modelling graphical user interface.
- Optional, standards-based reference libraries for LTE-Advanced, 802.11ac, WCDMA, OFDM, and other waveforms, as well as crest factor reduction.
- A calibrated stimulus/response measurement platform with up to 250 MHz of bandwidth (using the M9392A PXI microwave vector signal analyzer), expandable to 800 MHz (using the M9362A-D01 PXIe microwave quad downconverter).
- Integration with leading RF EDA design tools, such as Agilent Advanced Design System and GoldenGate, for predictive, simulation-based extraction, including memory effects.
- Open interfaces that accept proprietary DPD intellectual property and test vectors; scriptable IVI/SCPI instrument connectivity; plus the ability to create custom GUIs that capture a company’s modeling and extraction methodologies for re-use and workgroup collaboration.