LMS-based RF BIST architecture for multistandard transmitters

Software defined radios (SDR) platforms are increasingly complex systems which combine great flexibility and high performance. These two characteristics, together with highly integrated architectures make production test a challenging task. In this paper, we introduce a Radio Frequency (RF) Built-in Self-Test (BIST) strategy based on Periodically Nonuniform Sampling of the signal at the output stages of multistandard radios. We leverage the I/Q ADC channels and the DSP resources to extract the bandpass waveform at the output of the power amplifier (PA). Analytical expressions and simulations show that our time-interleaved conversion scheme is sensitive to time-skew. We propose a time-skew estimation technique based on a Least Mean Squares (LMS) algorithm to solve this problem. Simulation results show that we can effectively reconstruct the bandpass signal of the output stage using this architecture, opening the way for a complete RF BIST strategy for multistandard radios.