What is SFDR?

Supplement for RF Circuit Design by Ludwig &

Bogdanov
Why?
I know a number of students taking courses making use of Ludwig and Bogdanovs text often fail
to grasp where the basic formulation used in the expression of SFDR comes from. I did a basic
writeup of equation (9.108) in the text for students in my courses, but I feel that this information
is valuable to others as well.

Explanation
The core idea behind Spurious Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) is trying to gauge the range where
an amplifier (or other block) is spur free. Conceptually this means that we are looking for the
range of the amplifiers input power, where the nonlinearity (distortion) of the amplifier is small
enough that the intrinsic noise in the amplifier is large enough to mask any modulation products.
If you were looking at a frequency plot of the amplifiers output spectra while varying input
power, you would observe a single spike at the input frequency and broadband noise. As the in-
put power rises, the various intermodulation products would start to show up above the noise as
small spurs in the frequency plot.

Ludwig and Bogdanov assume that the first spur you will observe in your amplifier is the 3 rd har-
monic, and without proof provide equation (9.108) as the following:

2
d f [dB]= (OIP3 [dBm]G0 [dB]Pin,mds [dB])
3
I have taken the liberty of explicitly noting that the IP3 specified in the text is explicitly the out-
put 3rd order intercept. Two alternative formulations of this equation are shown below noting that
we should directly be able to convert inputs to outputs in a dB scale by incorporating the gain
term.

2
d f [dB]= (OIP3 [dBm ]Pout,mds [dB])
3
2
d f [dB]= ( IIP 3 [dBm]Pin,mds [dB])
3

Formulation
Starting from the figure, note that the SFDR is defined as the output power observed at the onset
of the first spur (we will call this a test point Pout,t ) minus the minimum output power as defined
by the required minimum detectable power the amplifier can produce ( Pout,mds ).

d f [dB]=P out ,t [dBm ]P out ,mds [dBm]

When we consider the logarithmic behavior of the various harmonics, we note that the fundamen-
tal output power will rise at the same rate as the input power prior to the onset of compression.
This is stated explicitly as Pout =P in +G 0 . Other harmonics rise on the order of the number of
their harmonic, plus some unknown offset, explicitly Pout , N =N P in + K N . We will focus explic-
itly on the 3rd harmonic assuming it will be the first one seen.

Firstly we eliminate the unknown 3rd harmonic offset term through our knowledge of the 3rd order
intercept point. At this point the third and fundamental output powers are equivalent.

Pout ,3 =Pout ,0 if P in =IIP3

3 P in + K 3=( Pin +G0)

K 3=P in +G0 3 P in =G02 Pin

K 3=G 0 2 IIP 3

Next we determine the unknown input power required to produce an output 3 rd harmonic power
equal to that of our minimum detectable power.

Pout , 3=Pout , mds =3 P in ,t + K 3

=Pout , mds
=3 Pin ,t +G02 IIP 3
1
= ( 2 IIP 3G0 + P out ,mds )
3
Finally, we incorporate this result and our knowledge of the output power given gain and input
power to directly compute the dynamic range equation.

d f [dB]=Pout ,t [dBm]Pout , mds [dBm ]

=( P in ,t +G 0 )P out ,mds
2 1 1
= IIP3 G0 + Pout , mds +G0P out ,mds
3 3 3
2 2 2
= IIP3 + G 0 Pout , mds
3 3 3
2
= (IIP 3 +G0P out ,mds )
3
Finally, to force the form used in the text, we convert input and output powers by noting their re-
lation through the fundamental gain of the amplifier ( Pout =P in +G 0 ).

2
d f [dB]= (IIP 3 +G0P out ,mds )
3
2
= ((OIP3G0 )+G0( Pin,mds +G 0 ))
3
2
= (OIP3 G0 +G0G0 P in,mds)
3
2
= (OIP3 G0Pin,mds )
3