Tampa, FL. National Instruments chose the International Microwave Symposium to present several demonstrations, with a particular emphasis on power-amplifier design and test.
From a design aspect, the company described the design of an MMIC power amplifier in the design environment of NI's AWR subsidiary. The demo showed what's involved in the design of module-level output matching using load-pull analysis.
A second demonstration focused on NI's envelope-tracking and digital predistortion (DPD) reference design. The demo showed how to adjust RF-to-baseband synchronization and apply DPD using look-up tables (LUT) or memory polynomial models.
Yet another demo showed how to use PXI instruments—including a vector signal transceiver, arbitrary waveform generator, DC source, and digital multimeter—to characterize the gain and efficiency of a MaXentric infrastructure power amplifier that uses envelope tracking. The demo condensed what could have been a bench full of box instruments and custom hardware into a single 18-slot PXI chassis.
NI also demonstrated microwave instruments making IMD3 measurements on an 18-GHz power amplifier. And finally, the company highlighted NI AWR Design Environment V11, AWR's first major software release in 2014.
Visit www.awrcorp.com/download for more on the AWR design environment, and visit http://www.ni.com/pa/ for more on power-amplifier design and test.