JS Pan, General Manager of Wireless System Design and Partnership at MediaTek, said: “We’ve worked closely with Rohde & Schwarz over the past few years to accelerate the development of mmWave technologies and optimize our solutions for 5G networks. Our tests on the Rohde & Schwarz OTA test system will ensure that our customers can confidently bring to market devices that meet the rigorous requirements of 5G.”
The Rohde & Schwarz solution is the first in the industry to meet some of the major challenges of real-world 5G deployments. For example, millimeter waves experience high path loss, and shadowing effects further decrease signal strength. The solution – a beamforming antenna array design – demands a test environment capable of measuring multiple beam streams to ensure the required quality and characteristics of each beam. Rohde & Schwarz is providing a complete 5G mmWave OTA turnkey solution using the R&S ATS1800C CATR chamber that ensures repeatable, accurate and robust characterization of 5G transmitters and receivers.
Alexander Pabst, Vice President Systems and Projects at Rohde & Schwarz, said: “To deliver on the promise of high speed and reliable 5G connectivity, it’s essential to accurately measure and test antenna performance in an OTA environment. Our high-performance turnkey OTA system is ideally suited to help companies like MediaTek more quickly and reliably bring their solutions to market.”
The R&S TS8980R&D-M1 test system consists of the R&S ATS1800C CATR (compact antenna test range) chamber – along with the R&S SMW200A vector signal generator, R&S FSW50 signal and spectrum analyzer and R&S ZVA40 vector network analyzer.
The R&S ATS1800C CATR is a movable shielded chamber solution that allows engineers to fully characterize and test their components in a non-conducted OTA environment.
At 5G mmWave frequencies, the R&S ATS1800C can perform blackbox 3D far field measurements of 30 cm devices (Smartphones, tablets, notebooks) while occupying an unrivalled footprint of only 1.4 m2 (15 sqft).
It includes a highly accurate positioning system that allows for handling transmitter and receiver performance measurements in a 5G environment with beamformed signals, covering a wide frequency range of 20 to 87 GHz.
Using the associated test and measurement equipment and the R&S ATS1800C CONTEST measurement software, radiation patterns of 5G antenna arrays can be measured extremely precisely in just a few minutes.
Furthermore, device transmitter tests can be performed using the R&S ATS1800C in combination with the R&S FSW67 signal and spectrum analyzer, which provides a direct measurement frequency range up to 67 GHz. For device receiver tests, the R&S ATS1800C is used with the R&S SMW200A vector signal generator. The R&S SMW200A and R&S FSW are the first instruments of their kind to provide mmWave frequencies and 2 GHz modulation/demodulation bandwidth. The R&S ZVA40 vector network analyzer supports up to four independent signal sources allowing parallel signal output. The R&S ZVA series is an ideal choice for demanding measurement tasks in the lab and in production.
MediaTek’s Helio M70 5G supports key 5G technologies including standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) network architectures, the sub 6 GHz frequency band and high power user equipment (HPUE). The multimode chipset is designed for compliance with the 3GPP Rel-15 specifications. The Helio M70 is available now, and is expected to ship in the second half of 2019.
