10 software-designed instrumentation the evolution for wireless testing

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Software-designed Instrumentation,

the evolution for Wireless testing

Alexsander Loula

Business Development Manager

National Instruments Brazil

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Company overview

Founded in 1976 and HQ in Austin, TX

• Dr. James Truchard, President, CEO, and Cofounder

• Jeff Kodosky, NI Business and Technology Fellow, and Cofounder

30+ years growth and profitability

• $1.04B revenue in 2012

6500+ employees; operations in 45+ countries

FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 12 consecutive years

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The motivation…

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In a recent past

Pope election in 2005 / 8 years ago

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/papst-momente-bilder-zeigen-vergleich-zwischen-2005-und-2013-a-889031.html

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Nowadays

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/papst-momente-bilder-zeigen-vergleich-zwischen-2005-und-2013-a-889031.html

Pope election in 2013

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Evolution in Technology = Evolution in Product

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CDMA

GSM EDGE

802.11abg 802.11n 802.11ac

802.11ad

GPS

GLONASS

LTE

LTE-A

ZigBee

Bluetooth

WiMAX

NFC

RFID

Increasing complexity

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Today’s expectations of the perfect wireless test

instrument

image courtesy of Wade Lowdermilk, BAE Systems

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Expectation: More functionality

image courtesy of Wade Lowdermilk, BAE Systems

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Expectation: Smaller footprint

image courtesy of Wade Lowdermilk, BAE Systems

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Expectation: Reduced cost

image courtesy of Wade Lowdermilk, BAE Systems

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Expectation: Accelerated delivery

image courtesy of Wade Lowdermilk, BAE Systems

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Expectations force a redefinition of instruments

More Functionality

Smaller Footprint

Reduced Cost

Accelerated Delivery

images courtesy of Wade Lowdermilk, BAE Systems

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The Software-designed Approach

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RF Software-designed Instrumentation Basic Block Diagram

FPGA (DSP)

VSA (High Performance

RX FE)

CPU Multicore

Bus

VSG (High Performance

TX FE)

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Example 802.11ac:

• Modulation: 256 QAM OFDM

• BW: 80MHz

• Level: -20 dBm

EVM:

• Specification: ≥ -42 dB

• Measured: -47.67

High Performance RF Front Ends

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FPGA Power and Open-source driver Programmable by the user with high level environment

Open, easily and fully programmable

by the user

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The best of both Worlds: CPU & FPGA

FPGA

Performance

(GMACs)

CPU

Performance

(GFLOPs)

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Bus Performance

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WCDMA & HSPA+

Support for several wireless standards

WiMAX WLAN

802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

ZigBee GNSS GPS, GLONASS

LTE (FDD/TDD)

GSM/EDGE +

RFID/NFC AM/FM/RDS

Bluetooth (2.1+EDR)

CDMA2000 EV-DO

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How institutions are using the

Software-designed Instrumentation

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“Overall, this new system was 10 times faster and 3 times less

expensive than the previous solution. The platform also provided

the flexibility needed to adapt to all the different digital and RF

standards.”

- Sylvain Bertrand, ST Ericsson

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Qualcomm Results for WLAN tests

Early 2000 - Traditional

Rack and Stack

2007 - NI PXI RF

Instrumentation

802.11a + b + g + 802.11n + 802.11ac

10X Faster Than

Traditional

200X Faster Than

Traditional

2012 - NI PXI Vector Signal

Transceiver

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"Using the Software-designed Instrument and the WLAN

Measurement Suite, we improved test speeds by more than 200

times compared to traditional rack-and-stack instruments while

significantly improving test coverage.“

- Doug Johnson, Qualcomm Atheros

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5G Research

Source mmWave: http://www.profheath.org/hot-topics/millimeter-wave-cellular-systems/

Source GFDM: https://mns.ifn.et.tu-dresden.de/Lists/nPublications/Attachments/750/FutureNetworkSummitPaper.pdf

mmWave

GFDM

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Summary

• Increasing device complexity requires a flexible and

software adaptable test platform

• The set of FPGA, CPU and bus technologies is essential

for the Software-designed Instruments

• High performance RF front ends are key to support the

newest wireless standards

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Q&A

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Thank You!

NI Brazil

(011) 3149-3149

brasil.ni.com