Rohde & Schwarz has announced that Qualcomm Technologies has selected its RF test system to test and characterize its 5G RF transceiver (SDR051). Qualcomm Technologies’ decision was based on the excellent performance of the selected instrument and the level of application support from R&S during the evaluation process.
Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon X50 5G modem platform in October 2016. The platform has been designed to support download speeds of up to 5 Gbps, initially using very wide bandwidths available in the 28 GHz millimetre wave (mmWave) band. Sampling of the Snapdragon X50 chipset is expected to begin in the second half of this year, preceded by thorough testing and characterization of performance.
Superior technical parameters and the demonstrated performance, stability and reliability required in a production and manufacturing environment, convinced Qualcomm Technologies to select R&S to provide 5G production test systems. The newly designed production and manufacturing R&S TS7830 RF test systems are based on the R&S SMW200A vector signal generator and the R&S FSW43 signal and spectrum analyzer, supplemented by additional equipment, components and automation software. The systems are supplied as a fully featured 5G turnkey solution.
The R&S SMW200A is the only instrument available in the market today that provides signal generation capabilities up to 40 GHz with a 2 GHz bandwidth, within a single instrument. The R&S FSW signal and spectrum analyzer family offers frequency support up to 85 GHz, including pre-selection that ensures single-sweep measurements versus double sweep measurements for image suppression and thus saves test time. An external harmonic mixer provides an easy-to-use extension to support RF frequencies up to 110 GHz. A recent upgrade enables the R&S FSW to be the only signal and spectrum analyzer available in the market today to support up to 1.2 GHz internal analysis bandwidth.
This announcement shows the commitment of Rohde & Schwarz to the wireless industry to provide innovative test tools and solutions that allow the testing of 5G devices and infrastructure equipment.
