R&S CMX500 one-box tester

Rohde & Schwarz is looking to eliminate the complexities of 5G NR device testing by combining ease of use and high performance in a single instrument. With its one-box tester approach, the R&S CMX500 5G radio communication tester enables even complex test set-ups for all 5G NR deployments, supporting a large variety of the present and future 3GPP band combinations. The simplified set-up in a single easy-to-use test platform results in a small footprint in the lab.

The one-box tester provides extensive device testing capability, including support for all 5G NR deployments covering LTE, 5G NR FR1 and FR2 in non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) mode, for both FDD and TDD with simple set-up and high performance. Manufacturers of cutting-edge 5G NR capable chipsets and devices as well as certification providers can cover the entire product life cycle, from all early R&D design phases to end-to-end application testing, including device certification.

Rohde & Schwarz has integrated sub 8 GHz RF units for FR1 into the one-box tester, in combination with the remote radio heads (RRH) which now cover mmWave frequencies up to 50 GHz in FR2. Consequently, even challenging 5G NR band combinations can now be simulated. For example, higher order carrier aggregation with up to 8CC combinations of FR1 and FR2 in downlink is possible, which can achieve data rates of 10 Gbps and beyond on the IP layer.

Data-hungry enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) applications like 8K video streaming or augmented and virtual reality will call for data rates as high as 10 Gbps in uplink and 20 Gbps in the downlink. The futureproof concept of the one-box tester is now ready to validate such high data throughput, all in a single box, making it 10 times more powerful than the R&S CMW500 wideband radio communication tester.