Computation of intermodulation distortion in RF circuits using single-tone moments analysis

Abstract

Obtaining the value of the third order intercept point using traditional simulation techniques typically requires a nonlinear steady state analysis with multitone inputs, which is very computationally expensive. In this paper, a new method is presented for the computation of the third order intercept point. Using the proposed approach, the necessary Volterra kernels are computed directly from the harmonic balance equations. The only computation cost is that of solving a set of sparse linear equations. Furthermore, only one input tone is required in this case, which greatly reduces the size of the equations and thus the computation cost.