Master mmWave Phase Noise Measurements

Welcome to the mmWave Age

Military, cellular, and automotive industries increasingly move to mmWave frequencies for improved bandwidth and available spectrum. Measurements of absolute and residual phase noise at D-Band, EBand, and beyond will become commonplace as more devices begin to occupy this spectrum. To help minimize the complexity in these measurements, this application note provides a better understanding of available tools that ensure that your device performs to expectation. You no longer have to let frequency and dynamic range limit your test capability.

By clearly determining the phase noise of your system and all of its constituent components, you can optimize all aspects of system performance. Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) in the system will have maximum dynamic range with low phase noise clocks. The added phase noise of amplifiers, multipliers, dividers and mixers can be characterized and optimized to ensure that overall system performance is not impacted by these components. The overall system phase noise performance will directly impact the performance of the system in its intended use (e.g., the sensitivity of the radar if the system is a radar or the error vector magnitude (EVM) if the system is a digital transceiver).

The N5511A Phase Noise Test System (PNTS) has the performance and flexibility to make phase noise measurements down to the limits of physics – the kT thermal noise floor- on the system’s overall (absolute) phase noise and all of its components (residual) at widely varying RF power levels. At the same time, it maintains the signal-to-noise ratio at the splitter input regardless of signal conditioning components like attenuators or amplifiers added after the splitter.