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Spurious signals (spurs) observed on the AD9361 output

Thread Summary

The user encountered a spurious signal at 2097 MHz during AD9361 debugging, which is a third-order mixing product. The solution involved reducing the digital transmit amplitude and compensating by decreasing the AD9361 TX attenuation to maintain RF output power. This approach significantly reduced the spur, and the user confirmed the improvement.
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Category: Hardware
Product Number: AD9361

"During AD9361 debugging, we encountered the following issue:

  • Center frequency: 2142 MHz

  • Output: +15 MHz single tone (i.e., RF output at 2157 MHz)

  • Observed spurious: At 2097 MHz, approximately -50 dBm, which is exactly at LO - 3×15 MHz = 2097 MHz.

  • This spur falls outside our filter passband.

  • We also observed that reducing the digital signal level (TX attenuation / digital scaling) significantly improves this spur.

Question: How can we further suppress this spur while maintaining the same output signal power level? Are there any register settings or hardware measures you would recommend?"

  • HI  

    This appears to be related to a third-order mixing/distortion product within the transmit signal chain rather than a simple LO leakage component. Reduce the digital transmit amplitude and compensate by reducing the AD9361 TX attenuation (increasing the analog output level) to maintain the same RF output power.

    Ensure all recommended TX calibrations have completed successfully, particularly the TX Quadrature Calibration and LO leakage calibration.

    Please check If the spur scales linearly for every 1dB change in signal level. try optimizing the input Digital atten and Tx atten to maintain at lower level.

    Regards,

    SJ

  • Thank you for your reply.

    This spurious signal does appear to be nonlinear. When I reduced the single-tone digital amplitude by 5 dB, the spur decreased by more than 10 dB. Then I reduced the AD9361 TX attenuation by 5 dB to compensate the output power. Although the spur increased slightly after that, the increase was limited, and it stayed around -60 dBm while the wanted signal was about -10 dBm.

    I think this level of suppression is acceptable for my current application.

    Thank you again for your help!

    Best regards,

  • HI  ,

    Thanks for the update. 

    Regards,

    SJ

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