RFmx Waveform Creator 21.8 Readme

April 2022

This file contains important information about the RFmx Waveform Creator, including system requirements, and installation instructions.

You can find more release information on ni.com.

• RFmx Waveform Creator Release Notes: Known issues, bugs fixed since the last release, and other notes about this release
• RFmx Waveform Creator Manuals: New features, behavior changes, and other documentation

Overview

New Features

Supported Hardware

System Requirements

Supported Operating Systems

Installation Instructions

Executable

Accessing the Help

Finding Examples

Product Security and Critical Updates

Behavior Changes

Automating the Installation of NI Products

Using NI Software with Microsoft Windows 10

Legal Information

Overview

RFmx Waveform Creator provides a unified interface for creating and generating waveforms for multiple wireless standards. You can create unencrypted, unlocked IQ waveform files for playback on NI PXI RF instrumentation. Supported standards include 5G NR, LTE/LTE-Advanced, W-CDMA/HSPA+, GSM/EDGE+, TD-SCDMA, and more.

New Features

RFmx Waveform Creator 21.8 includes the following new features:

• Support for Enhanced Trigger Frame Generation for WLAN 802.11be standard
• Support for 3GPP NR Release 17 (December 2021 Release)
• Support for configurable Cell ID in Downlink Test Models

RFmx Waveform Creator 21.5 includes the following new features:

• Support for 802.11be Standard IEEE P802.11be/D1.3 compliant waveform creation

RFmx Waveform Creator 21.3 includes the following new features:

• Support for LabVIEW 2021 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• WLAN
  • Support for 802.11be Standard IEEE P802.11be/D1.1 compliant waveform creation
• NR
  • Support for SSB periodicity 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, and 160 milliseconds
  • Support for xOverhead configuration as per 3GPP 38.214 specification

Supported Hardware

Visit NI Hardware and Operating System Compatibility to view driver, desktop operating system, and real-time operating system support for individual hardware devices.

To view information for your device:

• Select your hardware model in the dropdown list on the page to view compatibility information for your device.
• Type your hardware model number in the dropdown list on the web page to filter the list of available devices.

Note: Some compatibility information may only be available in the archive attached to the NI Hardware and Operating System Compatibility page. For historic driver and OS support information, refer to the readme for the relevant driver version.

System Requirements

RFmx Waveform Creator has the following requirements:

• Processor—1 GHz 64-bit (x64) processor
• 4 GB RAM ^*
• A screen resolution of 1,024 x 768
• Windows 10, with all available critical updates and service packs

^* Depending on the amount of data acquired and/or processed, a larger amount of memory may be required.

Supported Operating Systems

RFmx Waveform Creator 21.8 supports the following 64-bit operating systems:

• Windows 10
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2016

Note    RFmx Waveform Creator no longer supports Windows Vista/XP/7/8.1, Windows Server 2003/2008/2012, or any 32-bit Windows operating system. RFmx Waveform Creator 21.8 will not install or run on an unsupported OS. You cannot deploy or distribute applications that use RFmx Waveform Creator 21.8 to an unsupported OS. Additionally, after installing RFmx Waveform Creator 21.8, you cannot use any installers built on this computer with any version of LabVIEW, LabWindows™/CVI™, NI TestStand™, or Measurement Studio on an unsupported OS.

For detailed information about NI operating system support, visit http://www.ni.com/r/win32bitsupport.

RFmx Waveform Creator supports the following application software versions, including service packs. You should install application software, such as LabVIEW or Microsoft Visual Studio®, before installing RFmx Waveform Creator. If you are not using NI application software, refer to Microsoft Visual Studio Support.

Required Software

• NI-RFSG 14.5 or later
• NI-RFSG 20.7 or later (for MIMO configurations with PXIe-5830/5831/5832 in RFmx Waveform Creator for WLAN)

Microsoft Visual Studio Support

If you are using the RFmx Waveform Creator .NET Class Library, .NET Framework 4.0 (minimum) is required. The RFmx Waveform Creator .NET Class Library can be used with Visual C# or Visual Basic .NET in any Visual Studio version that can target .NET Framework 4.0 or .NET Framework 4.5.

Installation Instructions

Download the RFmx Waveform Creator installer from ni.com/downloads. NI software includes NI Package Manager to handle the installation. Refer to the NI Package Manager Manual for more information about installing, removing, and upgrading NI software using NI Package Manager.

Notes

• If Windows Update is enabled, the installation process might hang if Windows Update interferes with the installation of Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Run-Time. Visit ni.com/r/exjq43 for more information and steps to resolve this issue.
• If you purchased this product with an NI Software Suite or NI Product Bundle, use the installation media that shipped with your purchase to install this product.
• Use the serial number that is included with your software to activate RFmx Waveform Creator. For more information on RFmx Waveform Creator activation, refer to National Instruments Software Activation.

Executable

Select Start » National Instruments» RFmx Waveform Creator to launch the RFmx Waveform Creator.

Accessing the Help

Documentation for RFmx Waveform Creator is located at Start » National Instruments » RFmx Waveform Creator » RFmx Waveform Creator Documentation. The documentation set is composed of the following documents.

Finding Examples

You can access all the installed RFmx Waveform Creator examples at Start » National Instruments » RFmx Waveform Creator » RFmx Waveform Creator Examples.

For the most recent revisions of documentation and for newly released documentation, visit ni.com/manuals.

Product Security and Critical Updates

Visit ni.com/security to view and subscribe to receive security notifications about NI products. For information about critical updates from NI, refer to Available Critical and Security Updates for NI Software.

Behavior Changes

The following items are the behavior changes in RFmx Waveform Creator 21.8 from RFmx Waveform Creator 21.5.

• If there are multiple Tx antenna streams, the NR SSB and PDCCH are now mapped on all the antenna streams instead of just the first antenna stream.
• Dropped support for PDSCH Present in SSB Resource Block

The following items are the behavior changes in RFmx Waveform Creator 21.3 from RFmx Waveform Creator 20.7/20.7.1.

• Loading IQ waveform files is no longer supported in RFmx Waveform Creator for WLAN

The following items are the behavior changes in RFmx Waveform Creator 20.0 from RFmx Waveform Creator 19.1.

• Changed the data content of downlink NR test models from all-zero to PN23 sequence with respect to the changes in 3GPP TS 38.141v specification
• Changed modulation scheme for downlink NR test model 3.3 to QPSK with respect to the changes in 3GPP TS 38.141-1 v16.3.0 specification
• Changed the NR grid size for 100 MHz channel bandwidth and 240 kHz subcarrier spacing to 33.
• Changed the NR SS/PBCH block parameters CRB Offset and Subcarrier Offset to be 3GPP specification compliant.
• Changed the NR grid alignment for SS/PBCH block.

Automating the Installation of NI Products

You can automate the installation of most NI products using command-line arguments to suppress some or all of the installer user interface and dialog boxes.

If the NI product you are installing uses Microsoft .NET 4.6.2, the .NET installer may run before any NI software installs and may require a reboot before the installation of NI software begins. To avoid a .NET reboot, install .NET 4.6.2 separately before you install NI software.

For more information about automating the installation of NI products, refer to Automating an Installer in the NI Package Manager manual.

Using NI Software with Microsoft Windows 10

For more information about NI support for Windows 10, refer to NI Product Compatibility for Microsoft Windows 10.

Legal Information

Copyright

© 2017–2022 National Instruments Corporation. All rights reserved.

Under the copyright laws, this publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storing in an information retrieval system, or translating, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of National Instruments Corporation.

NI respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users to do the same. NI software is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Where NI software may be used to reproduce software or other materials belonging to others, you may use NI software only to reproduce materials that you may reproduce in accordance with the terms of any applicable license or other legal restriction.

End-User License Agreements and Third-Party Legal Notices

You can find end-user license agreements (EULAs) and third-party legal notices in the following locations after installation:

• Notices are located in the <National Instruments>\_Legal Information and <National Instruments> directories.
• EULAs are located in the <National Instruments>\Shared\MDF\Legal\license directory.
• Review <National Instruments>\_Legal Information.txt for information on including legal information in installers built with NI products.

U.S. Government Restricted Rights

If you are an agency, department, or other entity of the United States Government ("Government"), the use, duplication, reproduction, release, modification, disclosure or transfer of the technical data included in this manual is governed by the Restricted Rights provisions under Federal Acquisition Regulation 52.227-14 for civilian agencies and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement Section 252.227-7014 and 252.227-7015 for military agencies.

IVI Foundation Copyright Notice

Content from the IVI specifications reproduced with permission from the IVI Foundation.

The IVI Foundation and its member companies make no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The IVI Foundation and its member companies shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material.

Trademarks

Refer to the NI Trademarks and Logo Guidelines at ni.com/trademarks for information on NI trademarks. Other product and company names mentioned herein are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

Patents

For patents covering the NI products/technology, refer to the appropriate location: Help»Patents in your software, the patents.txt file on your media, or the NI Patent Notice at ni.com/patents.

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