EVM measurement of RF ZigBee transceivers using standard digital ATE

This paper targets the challenging issue of production test cost reduction for RF circuits. More specifically, it proposes a low-cost solution to perform EVM measurement of ZigBee transceivers using only a standard digital test equipment. The approach is based on 1-bit under-sampled acquisition of the RF modulated-signal by a digital tester channel associated with a specifically-tailored processing algorithm. The different steps of the post-processing algorithm are detailed in the paper. Hardware experimental results obtained on both a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) that emulates the circuit-under-test and on an actual ZigBee transceiver IC are presented.