Production test technique for measuring BER of ultra-wideband (UWB) devices

Ultra-wideband is an emerging standard for short-range high data-rate wireless communication. In a production test environment, ultra-wideband devices are tested for bit error rate (BER) in the presence of an external interferer. As the target BER values are small at low interference levels, it requires a long test sequence for measuring BER, incurring a long test time. This paper describes a novel production test technique for BER testing of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing transceivers. By adjusting the phase values of the baseband signal, the proposed manufacturing test methodology reduces the overall test time considerably (up to 20×), while keeping the error vector magnitude and peak-to-average ratio of the transmitted signal unchanged. This method can be extended to any phase modulation scheme to reduce the test time for BER.