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This paper proposes a measurement strategy to remove the random phase contributions of the sweeping local oscillator (LO) from modulated radio frequency phase measurements based on downconversion. To obtain a stable phase spectrum for each run of tone-by-tone sweeping measurement, the LO used for downconversion is coupled out to an extra path and modulated to be a wideband multisine signal. By monitoring the phase change of multisine signal at a specific and fixed frequency point, random LO phase offsets during the frequency sweep can be measured and compensated. In this paper, two experimental test benches with the same core measurement strategy but different architectures are established for method validation. According to the experimental results using test bench one, the phase stability is ±(0.2°–0.4°) at 1.8 GHz for fundamental mixing-based downconversion and ±(0.6°–1°) for harmonic mixing at 6 GHz. Based on test bench two, relative phase deviations of ±(0.8°–1.2°) at 22 GHz for fundamental mixing and ±(2°–3°) at 66 GHz for harmonic mixing are reachable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents novel nonlinear vector network analyzer (NVNA)-based techniques for characterizing the harmonic and intermodulation nonlinearity of dual-band radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PAs). On the one hand, a wideband Schroeder-phase multisine is used to drive a step recovery diode comb generator, so that a novel multiharmonic-band NVNA phase reference on a dense spectral grid is obtained. On the other hand, a novel phase calibration approach is developed to synchronize the NVNA multiband measurements. To validate the NVNA testbed with novel techniques, an RF PA under two typical kinds of dual-band multisine stimulus is tested, where the NVNA measurement is compared with that of an oscilloscope. This paper can be easily adapted for various multiband conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a practical approach for dense-spectral-grid phase measurements based on a nonlinear vector network analyzer (NVNA). With the multitone outputs of commercial VSGs as both phase references and standards, a modified NVNA is presented to effectively obtain the phase spectra of modulated RF signals with spectral resolution of 1–100 kHz. Due to the limited tone number of a VSG multitone standard, a multistep phase calibration method is also proposed in this paper for multiplying the calibratable tone numbers in practice. A phase accuracy of ±2° has been experimentally achieved with both the VSG-based approach and the multistep phase calibration method at 2.4 GHz on a 1–100-kHz spectral grid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]