The effect of amplifier distortion and filter type on BER of WCDMA-UMTS mobile radio systems

Abstract

This paper investigates the Bit Error Rates (BER) obtained using different filter types and the effect of amplifier distortion for RF front ends for WCDMA-UMTS mobile radio systems. Most Base Stations use Chebychev or Cauer-Cbebychev filters. This paper compares the use of Bessel, Butterworth and Chebychev filters for use as single channel filters in a WCDMA-UMTS radio system. It is shown that even though Bessel filters pass more adjacent channel interference, they result in a significantly lower BER and insertion loss than the other filter types, even for amplifiers with moderate distortion levels.