Battery life and power consumption are important considerations for a system-level RF transmitter design. Because the transmit power amplifier (PA) consumes a significant portion of the total system DC power, a number of techniques are employed to reduce PA power usage. Many PAs offer an adjustable DC supply voltage to optimize the maximum RF output power level versus its DC power consumption. Also, most PAs can be powered-down or disabled when not in use to conserve power, such as while receiving or between packets during transmission. In order to maximize power efficiency, the PA must have fast turn-on and turn-off switching times. The highest DC power efficiency occurs when the time delta between PA Enable and the RF signal is minimized, but a short delay can exacerbate transient effects on the RF signal. Because the power-up/power-down operation of the PA can cause transient and thermal effects that degrade transmitter performance, another metric called Dynamic EVM is often tested. Dynamic EVM is measured with a square wave pulse applied to PA Enable to emulate the actual dynamic operation conditions of the transmitter. The degradation in dynamic EVM is due to the PA transient response affecting the preamble at the start of the packet and causing an imperfect channel estimate. Studies have shown that dynamic EVM with a 50% duty cycle square wave applied to PA Enable to be worse than the static EVM (PA Enable with 100% duty cycle). See also Modulation error ratio Carrier to Noise Ratio Signal-to-noise ratio References Quantized radio modulation modes Radio electronics Digital radio