1

Implementation Effects on GSMs EDGE Modulation

Stephan V. Schell
Tropian, Inc
20813 Stevens Creek Blvd Cupertino CA 95014
Tel: +1-408-865-1300 Email: steve.schell@tropian.com Web: www.tropian.com
Abstract GSM's new EDGE modulation promises to increase data rates by up to 3x and is also viewed as a
migration path from existing IS-136 systems to 3G systems. The 8 3 / -shifted 8-PSK modulation scheme is
summarized and some potential simplifications are presented. Various practical impairments found in IQ
modulators are inflicted upon the EDGE signal, and their effects on the spectrum and error-vector magnitude are
characterized. Where possible, computer simulations are corroborated by results from Rohde & Scharz SMIQ &
FSEA signal generators and analyzers. Several sets of practically achievable impairments and their corresponding
spec compliance (or non-compliance) are identified.
I. Introduction
As the mobile communications market develops, interest is building for data applications and higher data rate
operation. The GSM system is meeting this challenge through a sequence of evolutionary steps. From the initial
voice-only network, the system first added the short messaging service (SMS), followed by high-speed circuit
switched data (HSCSD), and then adding the general packet radio service (GPRS). All of these services use the
same modulation format of the original GSM voice network (0.3-GMSK), and change the allocation of the bits
and/or packets to improve the basic GSM data rate.
After GPRS, the next step in improving the GSM system data rate is to change the signal to a type that has greater
bandwidth efficiency, i.e. more bits per second can be supported per unit bandwidth. This is most economically
implemented throughout the existing GSM infrastructure when the new signal type has identical bandwidth
occupancy characteristics to the original 0.3-GMSK signal. This is the motivation behind this next GSM
enhancement, called EDGE. The primary objective for the EDGE signal is to triple the on-air data rate while
meeting essentially the same bandwidth occupancy of the original 0.3-GMSK signal.
In this paper the focus is on generating and transmitting the EDGE signal. Unlike GMSK, the EDGE signal has a
time-varying envelope which in turn exposes the signal to impairments such as magnitude compression and AM-PM
distortion that are characteristics of practical hardware, but that do not impair the GMSK signal due to its constant
envelope. In addition, other impairments of IQ modulators such as gain imbalance and phase mismatch are present
as they for the GMSK signal. Thus, it is of interest to know how these impairments affect an EDGE transmitters
ability to meet signal-quality specifications.
Section II reviews the proposed EDGE signal, and Section III reviews a key measure of signal quality (the error
vector magnitude, EVM). Section IV examines the tolerance of the EDGE signal to anomalies in the modulator.
Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section V.
II. EDGE Signal Description
The coding, modulation, and filtering of the EDGE signal, which is 8 3 / -shifted 8-PSK, is shown in Figure 1.
We assume continuous operation (not bursted) of the EDGE signal for simplicity here.
Bit
source
Group into
3-bit triplets
Gray
Code
8-PSK
modulator
e
j3n/8
Complex
Filter
(quadrature)
QAM
modulator
s
n
= e
j2c
n
/8
s(t)
d
k
{0, 1}
s
n
c
n
d
k
c
n
{0, 1, , 7}
x(t)
Carrier f
c
Figure 1. Generation of the proposed EDGE signal
2
The bit source generates bits d
k
{0, 1} at a rate of f
b
= 812.5 kbps. Each group of 3 bits is Gray-coded into an
octal-valued symbol c
n
{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7} (see Table I). These symbols are produced at a rate f
s
= f
b
/3 =
270.833... ksps, which is identical to the GSM symbol rate.
Table I. Gray-coding of binary bit triplets into octal symbols
d
3n,
d
3n+1,
d
3n+2
0,0,0 0,0,1 0,1,0 0,1,1 1,0,0 1,0,1 1,1,0 1,1,1
c
n
3 4 2 1 6 5 7 0
The octal-valued symbols c
n
are used to phase modulate a sampled carrier (initially at zero carrier frequency),
yielding an 8PSK sampled waveform sequence s
n
:
8
c 2
n
n
s

j
e (1)
Each phase modulated symbol is additionally phase shifted by 3/8 times the symbol index, yielding the
cumulatively phase shifted (CPS) sample sequence
n
s :

8
n 3
n n
s s

j
e
( )
n n
n 3 c 2
8
b a
n
j e
j
+
+

(2)
The additional cumulative phase shift later serves to limit the envelope excursions (magnitude dynamic range) of the
filtered EDGE signal. The original 8PSK constellation of
n
s and the cumulatively rotated 8PSK constellation of
n
s are shown in Figure 2. Note that the 16 points of Figure 2b are no longer uniquely identified with a particular
symbol value, which is a consequence of the CPS operation.
(a) (b)
Figure 2. Unfiltered 8PSK EDGE constellations: (a) original, and (b) CPS.
The complex sequence
n
s is next passed through a lowpass filter to produce the filtered complex signal
( )

n
n
nT s ) ( t p t x (3)
where T=1/f
s
is the symbol interval, and p(t) is the filter pulse. Using (2) we can rewrite (3) in the alternative form
( ) ( )

+ +
n
n
n
n
nT b nT a ) ( ) ( ) ( t p j t p t jQ t I t x (4)
with real symbols a
n
, b
n
and real pulse p(t), for two real filtered signals I(t) and Q(t). Each real filtered signal can be
visualized as the output of a linear time-invariant (LTI) filter driven by a stream of impulses scaled by a
n
(or b
n
),
yielding a linear superposition of scaled time-shifted pulses p(t).
The exact filter pulse p(t) defined for the EDGE signal is non-zero over the interval -5T/2 t 5T/2,

,
_

+ T
2
5
) (
0
t c t p (5)
where c
0
(t) is the principal pulse in the Laurent decomposition of the 0.3-GMSK modulation,
3
( )

'

elsewhere 0
T 5 0 T
) (
3
0 i
0
t i t f
t c (6)
with

'

,
_

,
_

elsewhere
t du u g
t du u g
t f
t
t
0
8T 4T ) ( cos
T 4 0 ) ( sin
) (
T 4
0
0

(7)
The integrand g(t) in (7) is defined in terms of the frequency pulse in GMSK g
GMSK
(t) by
( ) T 2
2
1
) ( t g t g
GMSK
(8)
1
]
1

,
_

,
_

,
_

,
_

2
1
T
erfc
2
1
T
erfc
T 2
1
) (
t t
t g
GMSK
(9)
where ( ) 2 ln 2 3 . 0 2 / .
The combination of expressions (5)-(9) is clearly a complicated way to define a filter pulse. Tropian has found an
approximation to this pulse that is significantly less complicated to define, namely
( ) ( ) ( )
4 2
T / 0.218 T / 1.045 exp ) ( t t t p (10)
which is valid for all t and does not involve integrated error functions. In Figure 3 the exact and approximate pulses
are compared over the interval -5T/2 t 5T/2. As shown in Figure 3b, the maximum error in the approximation is
about 0.25% of the peak pulse value. The RMS error was measured to be 56 dB (0.15%).
(a) (b)
Figure 3. EDGE transmit baseband filter pulse: (a) overlay of exact and approximate pulses, (b)
error of the approximation (10).
The objective of the transmit filter is to constrain the bandwidth of the output signal so that it remains below (or
nearly below) the transmit mask defined for EDGE. Since the EDGE transmit mask is nearly identical to the GSM
transmit mask, the EDGE signal succeeds in tripling the data throughput within the standard GSM channel. Figure 4
shows the ideal power spectral density (PSD) of the EDGE signal and the PSD of the signal using the approximate
pulse (10), along with the most stringent EDGE transmit mask defined (i.e., for transmitters at or above +43 dBm
output power). The spectral containment objective is clearly met.
4
Figure 4. EDGE signal PSDs for the true pulse and approximation (12), and the spectral mask.
Signal constellation plots of the output from the complex filter are shown in Figure 5. The action of the complex
filter on the sequence
n
s causes significant variation in the envelope of the PSK signal. As seen in Figure 5a, the
EDGE signal has a non-zero minimum magnitude, which assures that the signal envelope never goes to zero.
Without the CPS operation, the constellation does go through the origin as shown in Figure 5b.
(a) (b)
Figure 5. Filtered constellations: (a) EDGE constellation, (b) constellation without CPS
(a) (b)
Figure 6.: Magnitude distributions: (a) the EDGE signal, and (b) 8PSK signal without CPS.
5
From typical waveforms generated according to (3), probability distributions of the signal magnitudes have been
determined. These probability distributions are presented in Figure 6. Defining the envelope dynamic range as the
ratio of maximum to minimum envelope values, we note from Figure 6a that the EDGE envelope dynamic range is
approximately 1.56/0.23 = 6.78 (17 dB). Without CPS, the minimum envelope value is zero and the envelope
dynamic range becomes infinite.
III. EDGE Signal Quality: EVM
To specify the required precision of the EDGE modulator, the term error-vector-magnitude (EVM) is defined. The
error vector is the (vector) difference between the ideal and actual complex envelope values. The EVM is simply
the magnitude of this error vector. In principle, at least.
The EVM definition accounts for three error sources that have negligible effect on sophisticated demodulators: a
complex valued constant offset, a complex valued constant gain, and a frequency and gain offset that varies symbol
to symbol. These errors in the actual complex envelope corrected before the EVM is computed.
To determine the error vector of the modulator we first define ) kT ( x and ) kT ( x to be the ideal and actual
complex envelopes (sampled once per symbol), respectively. We also let
DC be an unknown complex-valued DC offset
CG be an unknown complex-valued gain
W = e
dr
e
jda
be an unknown amplitude and frequency compensation factor
Then
) kT (
CG
DC W ) kT (
) k (
-k
x
x
E

(11)
is the error at sample k between the ideal signal and the measured signal, after compensation for amplitude
growth/decay, frequency offset, DC offset, and constant gain and phase shift. It is noted that the specified
suppression of any origin offset is 35dB (1.7%) for base stations under both normal and extreme conditions.
The unknown parameters are found by minimizing the root-mean-squared (rms) EVM

k
2
k
2
rms
) kT ( ) k ( EVM / x E (12)
with respect to DC, CG, and W. The resulting minimized RMS EVM must be 7% for base stations under normal
conditions, and 8% under extreme conditions.
Following this minimization, the minimizing values for DC, CG, and W are used in the definition of E(k) to obtain
the symbol-by-symbol EVM
K x E / /
k
2
) kT ( ) k ( EVM(k)

(15)
where K is the number of samples in the useful part of a burst. The specified peak value of these determined EVM
values must be 22% for base stations under both normal and extreme conditions. Further, the 95
th
percentile of the
determined EVM values must be one-half of this peak, or 11% for base stations under both normal and extreme
conditions. That is, only 5% of the determined EVM values can exceed 11%.
IV. EDGE Modulator Accuracy Requirements
It is always a goal of hardware engineering to have the performance of system hardware match the mathematical
ideal. This is never achieved, however, due to a combination of complexity and practicality (economic) constraints.
This section examines the performance of the EDGE signal through hardware having known anomalies. These
anomalies are first examined individually, using simulation (and lab measurements where possible), so that their
effects on the EDGE signal can be understood in the absence of all other anomalies. Finally, some combinations of
anomalies are examined together to see their combined effect.
The anomalies examined are of two types. First are the system level anomalies of magnitude compression, AM-PM
conversion (envelope variation-induced phase shifts), and residual phase error. Then the major anomalies of the
quadrature modulator are addressed: modulation offset, modulation gain error, quadrature phase imbalance,
modulation quantization, and pulse truncation.
6
System Level Anomalies
Magnitude Compression
Magnitude compression occurs in the amplifiers following the QAM modulator, and in the output of the QAM
modulator itself. Thus, we require an expression for the final output signal shown in Figure 1. For an output signal
carrier frequency f
c
and complex envelope x(t) (4), the output of the QAM modulator is
) f 2 sin( ) ( Q ) f 2 cos( ) ( I ) (
c c
t t t t t s (14)
A third-order compression model with system gain G is used in this analysis,
) ( ) ( ) (
3
3
t s c t Gs t y (15)
The amplifier compression, which is the deviation of (15) from linear, is the ratio of (15) to the ideal output
G
t s c
t Gs
t s c t Gs
t s K
) (
1
) (
) ( ) (
)) ( (
2
3
3
3

(16)
Let A be the input 1 dB compression point. Then the value of (16) is K(A) =
10 / 1
1
10 CP

= 0.794, and the third
order coefficient c
3
is found from
1
2
3
CP A 1 ) A ( / G K c , which yields
2
1 3
A / ) CP 1 ( G c (17)
By choosing A=1, the input-output model for compression is normalized to the input 1 dB compression point. The
input-output relationship for the cubic compression model is shown in Figure 7. The effect of this third-order
magnitude compression model alone on the EDGE signal is shown in Figure 8.
Figure 7. Input-output relationship for the cubic compression model for G = 1. The vertical line
near Vin=0.8 corresponds to 2 dB of input backoff from the input 1 dB compression point.
(a) (b)
Figure 8. Effect of magnitude compression alone on the EDGE signal: (a) RMS EVM (solid
line) and peak EVM (dashed line), and (b) PSD, for input back-off values of 0, 2, 4, and 6 dB.
7
AM-PM distortion
A well-known characteristic of any amplifier is that the phase shift through the amplifier is related to the magnitude
of the signal at the input of the amplifier. This is referred to as AM-PM distortion, and holds whether the amplifier
is linear or limiting. For this analysis, we are interested in the AM-PM distortion of a linear amplifier and its effect
alone on the EDGE signal. A typical AM-PM distortion characteristic of a linear amplifier around its input 1 dB
compression point is shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9. AM-PM distortion characteristic normalized to the input 1 dB compression point.
Using the AM-PM distortion characteristic from Figure 9, and scaled to produce a varying effect (namely, a phase
shift of 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 degrees at the input 1 dB compression level), we get the data presented in Figure 10.
(a) (b)
Figure 10. Effect of AM-PM distortion alone on the EDGE signal: (a) EVM, and (b) PSD for 1,
2, 4, 8, and 16 degrees of AM-PM distortion at the input 1 dB compression level.
Residual Phase Error
Even with a perfect modulator, the RF oscillators have a residual phase noise. This phase noise integrates over the
signal bandwidth to result in a wandering phase reference for the transmitted signal [1]. This random phase behavior
can be modeled as a non-white zero-mean Gaussian random process with a specified variance, leading to a specified
integrated phase jitter or residual phase error (RPE), as shown in Figure 11a. In this way, an attempt to relate the
GSM phase error specifications with the EDGE error vector specifications can be made.
Figure 11b shows the relation between RPE alone and the EDGE EVM specification. It shows that the RMS EVM
specification is met with significant margin through 8 degrees of RPE standard deviation. The peak EVM spec
allows only up to 8 degrees RPE. This matches well with the GSM specification, which requires at most 5 degrees
8
of RMS phase error and 20 degrees peak. The corresponding effect of RPE on the EDGE signal spectrum is shown
in Figure 11c. The PSD barely meets the mask with 5 degrees of RPE. A sample constellation diagram for an
EDGE signal with 4 degrees of RPE is shown in Figure 11d; in comparison with the ideal constellation diagram
shown in Figure 5a, minor impairment is barely visible, which is consistent with RMS and peak EVM being well
below the limits.
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 11. Effect of residual phase error alone on the EDGE signal: a) phase noise model, b)
EVM, and c) PSD = 1, 2, 4, 5, and 8 degrees, d) sample constellation for = 4 degrees.
Quadrature Modulator Anomalies
A linear system using a quadrature modulator is a natural choice for generating the EDGE signal, since the filtered
signal is envelope-varying as seen in Figure 5a. The quadrature modulator has several error sources inherent in its
realization [2]. The following figures present the sensitivity of the proposed EDGE signal individually to four
quadrature modulator anomalies: I/Q modulation offset, I/Q gain imbalance, quadrature phase imbalance, and I/Q
quantization
I/Q modulation offset
The EDGE specification proposal specifically limits the amount of modulation offset (carrier leakage) acceptable in
the quadrature modulator. These limits are 30 dB (3%) for handsets and 35 dB (1%) for basestations.
For modulation offsets alone up to 20 dB (10%), no notable anomaly in the PSD is observed. Also, from (11) any
DC offset to the modulation is explicitly removed prior to the determination of EVM, so any DC offset has no effect
on EVM performance.
9
I/Q Gain Imbalance
Evaluation of the sensitivity of the EDGE signal to gain imbalance alone between the I and Q channels is shown in
Figure 12. For gain imbalances up to 10% there was found to be no notable anomaly in the PSD. In contrast, the
RMS EVM spec is reached at gain imbalance of 7%. Since the Rohde & Schwarz SMIQ-02 can impose I/Q gain
imbalance on its output, measurements of its EVMs were taken using a Rohde & Schwarz FSEA-30 in the lab. Very
close correspondence between simulated and measured RMS EVMs is noted.
Figure 12. Effect of I/Q gain imbalance alone on the EDGE signal EVM. The superimposed Xs
and Os indicate RMS and peak EVM measurements taken using a Rohde & Schwarz FSEA-30
analyzing the output of a Rohde & Schwarz SMIQ-02 signal generator.
Quadrature Phase Imbalance
Evaluation of the sensitivity of the EDGE signal to phase imbalance alone between the I and Q channels is shown in
Figure 13. For phase imbalances up to 10 degrees there was found to be no notable anomaly in the PSD. In
contrast, the RMS EVM limit is reached at just over 8 degrees of quadrature phase imbalance. Since the Rohde &
Schwarz SMIQ-02 can impose phase imbalance on its output, measurements of its EVMs were taken using a Rohde
& Schwarz FSEA-30 in the lab. Very close correspondence between simulated and measured RMS EVMs is noted.
Figure 13. Effect of quadrature phase imbalance alone on the EDGE signal EVM. The
superimposed Xs and Os indicate RMS and peak EVM measurements taken using a Rohde &
Schwarz FSEA-30 analyzing the output of a Rohde & Schwarz SMIQ-02 signal generator.
I/Q Modulation Quantization
Evaluation of the sensitivity of the EDGE signal to quantization alone on the quadrature modulators I and Q
modulation input channels is shown in Figure 14. Both modulation channels are subjected to the same quantization.
For finite quantization limits the EDGE PSD exhibits a far-out noise floor which decreases at approximately 6 dB
for each additional bit in the quantizer. The effect on peak and RMS EVM is less notable; in all cases the EVM
specifications are met with significant margin.
10
Figure 14. Effect of I/Q modulation quantization alone on the PSD of the EDGE signal for 8, 9,
10, 11, and 12-bit quantization of the I and Q inputs to the modulator.
Pulse Truncation
Examination of Figure 3a shows that the magnitude of the filter pulse may be negligible for one-half of a symbol
interval at each end of the pulse. Truncating the filter pulse to 4 symbols (rather than 5) may be attractive since it
simplifies the hardware implementation. The effect of this truncation on the EDGE PSD is shown in Figure 15. A
wideband floor appears, which is below the specified transmit mask. The effect on EVM is negligible.
Figure 15. Effect of pulse truncation alone on the EDGE signal PSD.
Combination Case
In a real system the anomalies discussed individually above exist in combination. Thus, all individual performances
must operate below their limits so that the combination of anomalies still meets the EDGE specification.
Here we consider the following list of anomalies all present: 3% gain error, 3 degrees of phase imbalance, 4 degrees
of AM-PM at the input 1 dB compression point, 12-bit quantization on I and Q, and 3 dB of input backoff. The
performance of this combination is shown in Figure 16. The EVM for this combination evaluates to 6.6% RMS
EVM (7% spec) and 15% peak EVM (22% spec). Increasing any of these impairments leads to a violation of either
the EVM specs or the PSD spec or both.
11
Figure 16. EDGE power spectral density for the combined anomalies of 3% gain error, 3
degrees of phase imbalance, 4 degrees of AM-PM at the input 1 dB compression point, 12-bit
quantization on I and Q, and 3 dB of input backoff.
V. Conclusion
The proposed 8 3 / -shifted 8PSK EDGE signal succeeds in its primary goals of tripling the on-air data rate while
maintaining nearly the same spectral occupancy as the original GSM signal (0.3-GMSK). Its 8 3 / -shift assures
that the signal envelope never falls below a certain level. Nonetheless, this signal has significant envelope variation,
which exposes the signal to magnitude compression and AM-PM distortion impairments that dont degrade the
signal quality of GMSK. Thus, it is of interest to characterize the effects of these and other anomalies alone and in
combination so that guidelines for practical hardware implementations of EDGE modulators can be found.
Performance of the EDGE signal is examined in the presence of various isolated signal anomalies, including
magnitude compression, AM-PM distortion, phase noise, carrier leakage, I/Q gain mismatch and phase imbalance,
I/Q quantization, and pulse truncation. Where possible, lab measurements were taken, and these corroborate the
computer simulation results. A combination of these signal anomalies, representative of a typical I/Q modulator, is
evaluated; the results suggest that the EVM and PSD specs can be met by such an implementation, albeit with no
margin.
Acknowledgment
The author gratefully acknowledges the technical advice and discussions with numerous colleagues at Tropian, Inc,
and in particular would like to thank Dr. Earl McCune, Jr., who also proposed this particular line of inquiry and
contributed significantly to this paper.
References
[1] U. L. Rohde, Digital PLL Frequency Synthesizers: Theory and Design , Prentice-Hall (1983), Appendix A-2-2.
[2] E. McCune, An Error Analysis of the Quadrature Modulator and Demodulator, Proc. Sixth Annual Wireless
Symposium, Feb. 1998, pp 137-141.