SC-FDMA Performance in Presence of Oscillator Impairments: EVM and Subcarrier Mapping Impact

We derive an analytical expression for the error vector magnitude under carrier frequency offset (CFO) and joint transmit-receive phase noise (PN). CFO and PN are major oscillator impairments in direct-conversion transceivers. As a case study, we consider multi-user uplink transmission with single-carrier frequency-division-multiple access as in the long-term evolution standard. The derived expression reveals an interesting relationship between the subcarrier mapping scheme and the immunity to CFO and PN. Furthermore, we verify the accuracy of our derived expression through Monte-Carlo simulations for various CFO and PN levels.