THMA10: GSM and NB-IOT: Methods for Testing and Correlation in RFIC Performance Characterization

Abstract
Despite growing broadband cellular systems, many critical applications, such as emergency services, smart-metering, telemetry, industrial M2M links, asset-tracking. The services continue to use GSM or NB-IOT for its wide-coverage, reliability, and low-cost. Ensuring robust performance in these long-lifecycle systems requires accurate phase-noise characterization of RF-transceiver devices(RFIC). This work presents a refined methodology for measuring RFIC phase-noise using precision external clock source and mathematical tools to separate different components. Moreover, it outlines RFIC power-supply optimization techniques to extract inherent device noise metrics and addresses practical bench-measurement challenges to enable repeatable evaluation of RFIC qualification metrics for GSM and NB-IOT based radios.