Effects of Phase Noise and Frequency Offset on the Performance of 4K-QAM and 16K-QAM in 802.11be and 802.11bn WLANs

This paper analyzes the performance of IEEE 2024 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7) and 2028 802.11bn (Wi-Fi 8) amendments with modulation and code schemes (MCS) that use 4K and 16K quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) schemes with low-density parity check codes when the physical layer implements transmit beamforming (TxBF) transceivers impaired with phase noise (PN) and carrier frequency offset (CFO). We have concluded that scheduling MCS with 4K-QAM signaling is feasible with TxBF transceivers jointly impaired with PN and CFO. On the other hand, scheduling MCS with 16K-QAM signaling demands a robust hardware, quantified in this paper within the scope of 802.11be/bn amendments, to avoid significant power losses in the link budget due to PN and CFO.