SPRACV2 November   2020 AWR1843 , AWR2243

 

  1.   Trademarks
  2. 1Introduction
    1. 1.1 Background – Simple Single-Chip Applications
  3. 2Cascade Incoherence Sources and Mitigation Strategies
    1. 2.1 PCB Routing Imbalances and Device Processes
    2. 2.2 Temperature Drifts
    3. 2.3 Scheduling of Run Time Calibrations
  4. 3Enabling Cascade Coherence and Improved Phase Performance
    1. 3.1 High-Level Summary
      1. 3.1.1 Sequence of Proposed Steps and Introductory Flow Diagrams
    2. 3.2 Saving RF INIT Calibration Results at Customer Factory
      1. 3.2.1 Note on LODIST Calibration
      2. 3.2.2 TX Phase Shifter Calibration and Saving Results at Customer Factory
    3. 3.3 Corner Reflector-Based Offsets Measurement at Customer Factory
      1. 3.3.1 Corner Reflector-Based Inter-Channel Imbalances
      2. 3.3.2 Corner Reflector-Based TX Phase Shifter Errors
    4. 3.4 Restoring Customer Calibration Results In-Field
      1. 3.4.1 Restore RF INIT Calibrations Results In-Field
      2. 3.4.2 Restore TX Phase Shift Calibration Results In-Field
    5. 3.5 Host-Based Temperature Calibrations In-Field
      1. 3.5.1 Disabling AWR Devices’ Autonomous Run Time Calibrations
      2. 3.5.2 Enabling Host-Based Temperature Calibrations of Inter-Channel Imbalances
      3. 3.5.3 Switching of DSP Imbalance Data
      4. 3.5.4 Enabling TX Phase Shifter’s Host-Based Temperature Calibrations
        1. 3.5.4.1 Estimating TX Phase Shift Values at Any Temperature
        2. 3.5.4.2 Temperature Correction LUTs for AWR1843TX Phase Shifter
        3. 3.5.4.3 Temperature Correction LUTs for AWR2243 TX Phase Shifter
        4. 3.5.4.4 Restoring TX Phase Shift Values – Format Conversion
        5. 3.5.4.5 Restoring TX Phase Shift Values – Transition Timing and Constraints
        6. 3.5.4.6 Typical Post-Calibration TX Phase Shifter Accuracies
        7. 3.5.4.7 Correcting for Temperature Drift While Sweeping Across Phase Settings
        8. 3.5.4.8 Amplitude Stability Across Phase Shifter Settings
        9. 3.5.4.9 Impact of Customer PCB’s 20-GHz Sync Path Attenuation on TX Phase Shifters
      5. 3.5.5 Ambient and Device Temperatures
  5. 4Concept Illustrations
  6. 5Miscellaneous (Interference, Gain Variation, Sampling Jitter)
    1. 5.1 Handling Interference In-Field
    2. 5.2 Information on TX Power and RX Gain Drift with Temperature
    3. 5.3 Jitter Between Chirp Start and ADC Sampling Start
  7. 6Conclusion
  8.   A Appendix
    1.     A.1 Terminology
    2.     A.2 References
    3.     A.3 Flow Diagrams for Proposed Cascade Coherence Scheme
    4.     A.4 LUTs for TX Phase Shifter Temperature Drift Mitigation
    5.     A.5 Circular Shift of TX Phase Shifter Calibration Data Save and Restore APIs

2.1 PCB Routing Imbalances and Device Processes

Slight imbalances in the PCB routing of the 80-GHz TX and RX lines as well as the 20-GHz (FMCW Sync LO) lines are possible in cascade sensors with large antenna arrays. The TX, RX, and 20-GHz LO circuits in different devices can also have manufacturing variability. These can result in inter-channel imbalances across devices in the cascade systems.

It is common for customers to perform factory calibrations to measure the cascade’s inter-channel imbalances and TX phase shift errors, and store them in a non-volatile memory (NVM) for use in error compensation in-field. For this to be effective, the devices’ analog configurations (i.e., RF register settings) during in-field operation need to match those during factory calibration.

RF INIT calibrations can converge to different analog configurations each time they are executed due to measurement noises and temperature differences across executions. Therefore, triggering RF INIT calibrations in-field on every power cycle (as in single-chip context) can render the devices’ analog configurations to be different from those during factory calibration and make the factory calibration based compensation ineffective. As a way to avoid such a situation, TI recommends that each AWR device’s RF INIT calibrations are triggered only during the customer factory calibration process. Those results may be stored in a non-volatile memory on the sensor and restored to the AWR devices upon each power up during in-field operation.