What is RF cascade analysis?

What is RF cascade analysis?

What is cascade analysis? Cascade analysis is a simple yet powerful tool for analyzing system performance. You can analyze small-signal gain and noise figure nearly exactly, and come pretty close to modeling large-signal performance, such as predicting one-dB compression point.

What is RF Cascade?

An RF chain is a cascade of electronic components and sub-units which may include amplifiers, filters, mixers, attenuators and detectors. The key electrical parameters for an RF chain are system gain, noise figure (or noise factor) and overload level.

What is cascade analysis?

A cascade analysis is designed to answer key policy questions about cascades. It is a way of using available data in a smart, custom-made model built for answering the questions that matter most to decision-makers.

How is cascade noise figure calculated?

Basically, the way to look at this is the cascaded noise figure is equivalent to the noise power added between the first and last stage minus the cascaded gain.

What is RF budget?

RF budget analysis is based on using frequency domain characteristics for each top level two-port component in the RF system design. The components may include mixers and nonlinear amplifiers. The analysis is performed at the single RF tone with specified power from the system input signal source.

What is noise figure in RF?

The noise figure (F) of a network is defined as the ratio of the signal-to-noise power ratio at the input to the signal-to-noise power ratio at the output. Thus the noise figure of a network is the decrease or degradation in the signal-to-noise ratio as the signal goes through the network.

How is noise factor calculated?

Noise factor: The noise factor can be derived simply by taking the SNR at the input and dividing it by the SNR at the output. As the SNR at the output will always be worse, i.e. lower, this means that the noise factor is always greater than one.

How is SNR calculated in dB?

So, if your SNR measurements are already in decibel form, then you can subtract the noise quantity from the desired signal: SNR = S – N. Furthermore, for power, SNR = 20 log (S ÷ N) and for voltage, SNR = 10 log (S ÷ N). Also, the resulting calculation is the SNR in decibels.

How is RF link budget calculated?

A simple link budget equation looks like this: Received power (dB) = transmitted power (dB) + gains (dB) − losses (dB) Power gains and losses are usually expressed in decibels (dB), which is a logarithmic measurement, so adding decibels is equivalent to multiplying the actual power ratios.

How do you calculate a fade margin?

Adjacent channel interference fade margin is calculated as the difference between the median signal level and the total adjacent channel interference level, minus the required desired carrier-to-adjacent channel interference level to achieve acceptable performance.

What is the function of RF mixer?

An RF mixer is a three-port passive or active device that can modulate or demodulate a signal. The purpose is to change the frequency of an electromagnetic signal while (hopefully) preserving every other characteristic (such as phase and amplitude) of the initial signal.

How is RF noise floor measured?

One of the easiest ways of measuring noise levels is to use a spectrum analyser. It is able to determine the noise power in a given bandwidth. This can then be related to another bandwidth by scaling the power level measured to the required bandwidth.

How to analyze a cascade of RF elements?

Build a cascade of RF elements. Calculate the per-stage and cascade output power, gain, noise figure, SNR, and IP3 of the system. Compute nonlinear effects such as output power, IP2, NF, and SNR using harmonic balance analysis. Plot rfbudget results across bandwidths and over stages.

Is there a cascade calculator for RF / microwave?

This RF/microwave system Cascade Analysis Calculator is an easy to use design analysis tool. But it does have a few entry boxes and drop-down menus that can take some time to familiarize yourself with. So, let’s take a step-by-step look at how to get your cascade analysis rolling.

Which is the best RF Cascade workbook to use?

For more than a decade, RF Cascade Workbook 2005™ has been the de facto standard for spreadsheet-based RF system cascade analysis. RF Cascade Workbook 2018™ is the next phase in the evolution.

What do you need to know about cascade analysis?

What is cascade analysis? What is cascade analysis? Cascade analysis is a simple yet powerful tool for analyzing system performance. You can analyze small-signal gain and noise figure nearly exactly, and come pretty close to modeling large-signal performance, such as predicting one-dB compression point.