Noise contribution in nonlinear systems is very different from that in linear systems. The noise effects in nonlinear systems can be complicated and not obvious to predict. In this thesis, the focus was on the noise contribution in nonlinear systems when measuring with the nonlinear vector network analyzer (NVNA). An additional noise source together with a single sinewave signal was fed into the input of the amplifier and the performance was studied. The input power of the amplifier is considered to be the sum of the noise power and the signal power. The variation of the 1 dB compression point and the third order interception point as functions of the added noise power were studied. From the measured results in this thesis, the 1 dB compression point referred to the output power will decrease when increasing the added noise power at the input of the amplifier. The contribution of the added noise to the 1 dB compression point of an amplifier is considered dual: with the added noise the linear regression lines of the AM/AM curves are changed, and due to hard clipping the useful output power is reduced. As a result of those two effects, the added noise made the compression start at a lower power level. When the added noise reaches a certain level, the 1 dB compression point is hard to measure.

Thus when performing nonlinear measurements, the noise effects should be taken into considerations and further studies are required to get better understanding of the system’s behavior in noisy environment.