Characterization of SDR/CR front-ends for improved digital signal processing algorithms

This paper will demonstrate the importance of performing unified mixed-signal measurement and characterization procedures. It will be shown that a joint analog and digital analysis has a strong impact on future (radio-frequency) RF components and devices. This is mostly due to the fact that today's circuits and systems are evolving in the way of integration into a single module, which makes the separation of analog and digital analysis impossible to be done. Some details about mixed-signal instrumentation are introduced by showing representative laboratory measurement arrangements. They allow to obtain correlated information of analog and digital portions of mixed-signal systems, which are essential to retrieve the commonly named transfer functions. This information will make possible to produce better designs of the entire radio front-end, as well as, the implementation of optimized digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms to compensate the analog impairments.