Connecting EDA with test & measurement in high-performance wireless design
Summary
These, and other applications such as satellite communications that also use beamforming with phased-array antenna systems, call for a combination of highly linear and near-identical characteristics among large numbers of devices to ensure correct operation and maximise data throughput. By avoiding these repeated hardware iterations, usually needed to meet the applicable performance for different radio standards, teams can control their development costs and stick to the intended schedule, ultimately aiming to be ready for market launch on time and on budget. In the absence of an exact correlation, ensuring that the hardware will perform as expected, so minimizing any need to redesign, re-simulate, remake, and re-test, calls for engineering judgement based on acquired experience of making this transition. Chip design teams tend not to have extensive signal-design expertise in-house, so creating suitable signal sources in software to help understand the amplifier’s linearisability is a challenge. RF-system OEMs, for their part, can do more of their design validation work within the EDA tools and so can alleviate a significant element of risk associated with moving from the software-based simulation environment to prototype hardware.