5G brings higher data rates and a need for more efficient power amplifiers. Understand and calculate a PA’s efficiency. Radio communication systems steadily improve data rates and overall system performance. With that higher performance comes increasing pressure on power consumption. A recent industry report [Ref 1] concluded that power consumed by a typical 5G base…
Antenna elements combine in phased-array antennas
Learn how to use patch antennas and phase shifting to create a phased-array antenna to steer RF signals.
More antennas, faster data transfer
MIMO and beamforming provide increased data rates than you can get using single, omnidirectional signals. Antennas convert between radio waves propagating through space and electric currents moving in a metal conductor. In early communication system, antennas were often quite simple, perhaps just a half-wave dipole constructed of wire. We usually just had one antenna per…
OFDMA improves spectrum use in Wi-Fi 6
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access increases the efficiency of a crowded Wi-Fi channel. The access point is in control, managing who gets bandwidth and when.
The basics of 5G’s modulation, OFDM
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing has become the standard modulation format for 5G New Radio. Lean how OFDM works and how it’s used. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is an efficient modulation format used in modern wireless communication systems including 5G. OFDM combines the benefits of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) to produce…
Digital modulation basics, part 2: QAM and EVM
In Digital modulation basics, part 1 we examined the concept of quadrature modulation and signal generation. We showed a common block diagram for generating a quadrature signal (Figure 1). There is a corresponding receiver block diagram to extract the Inphase (I) and Quadrature (Q) components of the signal (Figure 2). The signal is converted to…
Digital modulation basics, part 1
Mobile devices have evolved from basic analog phones to digitally enabled smartphones that fit in the palm of your hand. Voice communications are still part of the mix, but voice calls are handled by converting the voice signal from analog to digital and transmitting it digitally. This means that mobile wireless systems are focused on…