Efficient nonlinear distortion analysis of RF circuits

Abstract

Nonlinear distortion, typically defined using the third order intercept point (IP3), is one of the key figures of merit that are critical in the design of RF communication circuits. The calculation of IP3 is typically based on analytical approaches such as Volterra series which are very complex and difficult to apply to circuits of arbitrary complexity, or on simulation based methods which require multi-tone inputs and thus result in a very high CPU cost. In this paper a new method based on the computation of the circuit moments is proposed. The new approach uses the circuit moments in order to numerically compute the Volterra kernels. This automates the process of numerically obtaining such kernels for any circuit and results in an efficient approach for the computation of IP3