Rohde & Schwarz’s CMW270 is an all-in-one solution for WiMAX mobile station and customer premise equipment testing in compliance with the 802.16e-2005 standard and the WiMAX Forum Mobile System Profiles. Operating in either non-signaling or signaling mode, it is optimized for high speed production, service and quality assurance testing.

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In fact, CMW270 combines signal generation and signal analysis capabilities in a single instrument, and provides real-time WiMAX communication along with physical layer and MAC layer observation. The instrument is designed to seamlessly integrate base station emulation for signaling mode measurements at minimal additional cost, which the manufacturer will make available for the CMW270 at a later date. In signaling mode, the instrument will be able to evaluate the behavior of a component or subsystem under actual WiMAX operating conditions, eliminating the need for a WiMAX base station as a reference. It also includes a general-purpose RF signal generator and RF power meter.

In non-signaling mode, the unit enables calibration of mobile WiMAX transmitters and receivers and measures receive characteristics. It has comprehensive measurement functions for verification including RF power, EVM, ACPR, spectrum mask, center frequency error, I/Q constellation, crest factor, and spectrum flatness. The measurement speed of the CMW270 is up to ten times faster than that of existing test solutions, which significantly increases throughput in the production of WiMAX chipsets and mobile stations.

Since R&S cooperated with chipset manufacturers at an early stage, the CMW270 is already adapted to leading WiMAX chipsets reducing the adaptation effort in mobile station production. Additional benefits include the low cost, the flexible upgrades and selftest functionality, according to R&S.

Furthermore, said the supplier, the WiMAX tester is ready for future expansions of the WiMAX standard. It covers the frequency range from 100 MHz to 6 GHz and supports all RF profiles defined by the WiMAX Forum. The CMW270 tester for non-signaling mobile WiMAX measurements is available now, stated R & S.