everything RF visited the Rohde & Schwarz booth at IMS 2026 in Boston last week, where the company showcased a wideband amplifier test setup designed to evaluate signal performance under realistic operating conditions. IMS 2026 is the world’s premier RF and microwave conference, bringing together thousands of industry professionals from around the globe to explore the latest technologies, tools, and technical developments.
Application Engineer Tosin Adebayo explained the setup that enables engineers to analyze amplifier behavior using complex, wideband signals instead of idealized tones, providing a more accurate representation of real-world scenarios.
R&S SMW200A The demonstration featured the R&S SMW200A signal generator transmitting a 100 MHz OFDM waveform into a pair of coupled amplifiers. This approach reflects modern communication environments where signals are wideband and highly modulated, allowing engineers to assess amplifier performance under conditions similar to actual wireless systems. SMW200A is a wideband vector signal generator with frequency coverage from kHz to tens of GHz with up to 2 GHz modulation bandwidth. It supports complex signals such as OFDM, high signal quality, multi-channel configurations, and advanced scenarios including MIMO and carrier aggregation.
R&S FSWx At the measurement stage, the setup used the R&S FSWX dual-port signal and spectrum analyzer to capture signals at multiple points in the chain. It simultaneously measured input error vector magnitude (EVM), output EVM, and residual EVM, providing a detailed view of signal integrity through the amplifiers and allowing clear identification of distortion introduced by the device under test. R&S FSWX is a multichannel analyzer with synchronized input channels, up to 8 GHz analysis bandwidth, and frequency coverage up to ~44 GHz. It uses cross-correlation to reduce noise and improve dynamic range, enabling phase-coherent measurements and accurate evaluation of EVM across multiple points in a signal chain.
The dual-port architecture of the FSWX allows synchronized, phase-coherent measurements, which is critical when comparing signals at different stages. By capturing both input and output signals at the same time, engineers can isolate amplifier-induced impairments more accurately and perform deeper analysis without the need for separate measurement steps.
Rohde & Schwarz at IMS 2026
The setup highlights a shift toward more advanced RF testing workflows, where real-time, multi-point analysis is used to validate component performance. It also demonstrates how wideband signal generation combined with high-performance analysis tools can support more realistic and efficient amplifier characterization.
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