4E2-3 Proceedings of ISAP2016, Okinawa, Japan

Potential Causes of PIM Problems in the LTE

Outdoor Base Station Multi-Band Antennas
Sheng-Ju Chou1,3, Hsi-Tseng Chou2, Li-Ruei Kuo3
1 Department of Communications Engineering, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan
2 Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
3 Whayu Industrial Corp. Inc., Taiwan

Abstract—This paper presents the statistic phenomena that are to feed the three columns of dual-polarization antenna
observed from the mass production of base station antennas to elements. In practice, the BTS antennas radiate EM field with
interpret the causes of PIM. This PIM is strictly required to high power of tens of Watts. The mutual coupling between
satisfy the specified limit in the wideband operation of mobile antenna arrays has to be proper considered to assure sufficient
communication. The avoidance of PIM highly depends on the
manufacture accuracy and skills, as well as the proper design of
isolations between ports from signal reflection and insertion
RF components, which subsequently impact the communication point of view.
quality. In this paper, the phenomena are demonstrated with the
causes summarized to exhibit the importance of PIM in BTS
antennas.

1. Introduction
The successful commercialization of 4G LTE mobile
communications has driven the development of multi-band Fig. 1: Configuration of 1L2H BTS antenna structure, where 6 ports of
antennas [1] co-structured to accommodate multiple systems excitations are created for multi-band and multi-system operations.
[2] of mobile communications, which are particularly desired
PIM is caused by the non-linear frequency responses of
for the implementation of base-station systems (base
antennas to port excitations, which can be produced by any
transceiver station, BTS). The wideband operation of these
components in the antenna system and may occur in self-
system has risen the concern of passive-intermodulation (PIM)
antenna array or adjacent arrays. This mutual coupling of non-
[3] that might interfere the communication between BTS and
linear frequency responses will create signals with strengths
user equipment (UE) and is strictly required to satisfy the
much larger than the signals received from the UEs. When the
desired limits.
harmonic signal frequency coincides with the frequency of
The phenomena of PIM arises from the non-linear
communication with UE, severe interference will occur. The
responses of electromagnetic (EM) fields [4] to the excitation
relationship is illustrated in Fig. 2, which shows the harmonic
of BTS antennas, which might appear at various
signals to cause interferences.
components/parts of antenna system structures. In this case,
high/low-order harmonic signals occur to interference the
receiving signals from UE when the harmonic frequency
coincides with the transmission frequency. In the realistic
antenna design, it is difficult to consider it in the antenna
structure because its causes are various. Especially it is
difficult to examine it from the theoretical point of view.
In this paper, we will present the PIM phenomena and
summarize the potential causes from the statistic point of view,
where the information is revealed from the data collected from
measurement [5] in the mass manufacture.
2. Short Overview of PIM Phenomena
Fig. 1 illustrates a typical BTS antenna structure for the
multi-band mobile communications, which accommodates one
column of elements for low frequency operation at 690-960
MHZ (referred to low band), and two columns of elements for
high-frequency operation at 1710-2690 MHz (referred to high Fig. 2: Illustration of PIM problems due to the creation of harmonic signals.
(Figure provide by Anritsu, Taiwan)
band). Here six ports of excitations are individually employed

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3. Summary of Potential PIM Causes
Theoretical estimation of PIM strength is difficult to
achieve because of its variety of causes. In this paper, we
summarize the potential causes from the statistically collected
data during the mass manufacture in the production lines. In
particular, five potential problems are identified, which appear
most frequently to affect the PIM strength including the use of
magnetic material, contamination of antenna and phase shifter
surfaces, connection junction between different components,
mutual coupling from antenna elements, and manufacture
quality of electronic components. These five causes have a
common phenomenon of non-smooth surface structure with
discontinuities, and will result in non-linear frequency
responses in the components to create higher or lower order
harmonic signals. The strength of PIM depends on the degree
of discontinuous surface. In the following, two examples are
shown to demonstrate the causes. More phenomena will be
shown in the conference presentation.
A. RF Cable
Fig. 3 shows the example of flaws in RF cables that are
found to cause severe increases of PIM strength, which are
due to the discontinuities on the surface to cause non-linear
responses. This discontinuity is difficult to detect, and plays
an important role.
Fig. 3: Illustration of flaws in the RF cable that causes the PIM problem.
B. Isolation between the Antenna Elements and Ground
Reflector
In the implementation of BTS antennas, the design of
ground reflector is an important components to control the
radiation beamwidth by designing its shape. This ground
reflector is also the structure to accommodate the antenna
elements and RF components to form antenna system. When
multiple columns of antennas at different frequency bands are
implemented together, the isolations between antenna arrays
and between antenna array and ground need to be considered.
The isolation between the RF components and the reflector
will affect the PIM strength, where good plastic screws need
to be employed to fast the RF components. Also the polyester
film attached to the ground reflector for isolation is also a
factor as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4: Illustration of isolation to the ground reflector, which affects the PIM.
C. Soldering at Connection Junction to Affect PIM
The connection between the antenna elements to the RF
components and cables is performed by using soldering at the
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junction. In our statistic data, it is an important factor to affect
PIM. It is desired to keep the size as small and smooth as
possible. Fig. 5 shows the popularly seen structure of
soldering. The leftover of solder and non-smooth soldering
will cause discontinuities on the surface, and subsequently
cause PIM problem.
Fig. 5: The leftover of solder and non-smooth soldering at the junction of
connection, which causes discontinuous surface variation and increases PIM.
Other causes of PIM in the realistic implementation of BTS
antennas include the manufacture of phase shifter, and will be
presented in the conference.
4. Conclusions and Discussion
The causes of PIM interferences are summarized in this paper
from the statistic collection of data in the mass production.
Three phenomena have been shown in Section 3. The
difficulties to quantize the factors to the PIM values have
made the investigation much difficult. However, the statistic
information will be able to rank the causes of PIM problems,
which will be shown in the conference presentation. In
addition, more causes in the collected data will be completely
presented.
References
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Advanced,” in IEEE Communication Magazine, vol. 50, no. 3,
pp. 114-121, March 2012
[2]. K. Linehan and R. Chandrasekaran, “Active antennas: The
next step in radio and antenna evolution,” Commonscope
White Paper 10, 2011
[3]. J. Sanford, “Passive intermodulation considerations in antenna
design,” IEEE Antennas and Propag. Soci. International
Symp., Vol. 3, pp. 1651~1654, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, 1993
[4]. J. T. Kim, et al., “Effects of external PIM sources on antenna
PIM measurement,” ETRI Journal, Vol. 24.6, pp. 435~442,
2002.
[5]. Y. Patenaude, et al., “Antenna PIM measurements and
associated test facilities,” IEEE Antennas and Propag. Soci.
International Symp., Vol. 4, pp. 620~623, 2001