Lawrence E. Larson

High-efficiency power amplifier using dynamic power-supply voltage for CDMA applications

Efficiency and linearity of the microwave power amplifier are critical elements for mobile communication systems. This paper discusses improvements in system efficiency that are obtainable when a DC-DC converter is used to convert available battery voltage to an optimal supply voltage for the output RF amplifier. A boost DC-DC converter with an operating frequency of 10 MHz is demonstrated using GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors. Advantages of 10 MHz switching frequency and associated loss mechanisms are described. For modulation formats with a time-varying envelope, such as CDMA, the probability of power usage is described. Gains in power efficiency and battery lifetime are calculated. An envelope detector circuit with a fast feedback loop regulator is discussed. Effects of varying supply voltage with respect to distortion are examined along with methods to increase system linearity.

Modified derivative superposition method for linearizing FET low noise amplifiers

Intermodulation distortion in field-effect transistors (FETs) at RF frequencies is analyzed using the Volterra-series analysis. The degrading effect of the circuit reactances on the maximum IIP3 in the conventional derivative-superposition (DS) method is explained. The noise performance of this method is also analyzed and the effect of the subthreshold biasing of one of the FETs on the noise figure (NF) is shown. A modified DS method is proposed to increase the maximum IIP3 at RF. It was used in a 0.25-mum Si CMOS low-noise amplifier (LNA) designed for cellular code-division multiple-access receivers. The LNA achieved +22-dBm IIP3 with 15.5-dB gain, 1.65-dB NF, and 9.3 mA@2.6-V power consumption

Integrated circuit technology options for RFICs-present status and future directions

This paper will summarize the technology tradeoffs that are involved in the implementation of radio frequency integrated circuits for wireless communications. Radio transceiver circuits have a very broad range of requirements-including noise figure, linearity, gain, phase noise, and power dissipation. The advantages and disadvantages of each of the competing technologies-Si CMOS and bipolar junction transistors (BJTs), Si/SiGe HBTs and GaAs MESFETs, PHEMTS and HBTs will be examined in light of these requirements.

Design of wide-bandwidth envelope-tracking power amplifiers for OFDM applications

An efficiency-enhanced power-amplifier system design is presented based on wide-bandwidth envelope tracking (WBET) with application to orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing wireless local area network systems. Envelope elimination and restoration (EER) and WBET are compared in terms of the time mismatch sensitivity between the base-band amplitude path and the RF path, and it is demonstrated that WBET is much less sensitive than EER to these effects. An adaptive time-alignment algorithm for the WBET system is developed and demonstrated. The analysis and algorithm are verified by experimental results. The measurement shows that the peak drain efficiency of the complete system was 30% at a 2.4-GHz orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing output power of 20 dBm.

An extended Doherty amplifier with high efficiency over a wide power range

An extension of the Doherty amplifier architecture which maintains high efficiency over a wide range of output power (>6 dB) is presented. This extended Doherty amplifier is demonstrated experimentally with InGaP-GaAs HBTs at a frequency of 950 MHz. P/sub 1 dB/ is measured at 27.5 dBm with PAE of 46%. PAE of at least 39% is maintained for over an output power range of 12 dB backed-off from P/sub 1 dB/. This is an improvement over the classical Doherty amplifier, where high efficiency is typically obtained up to 5-6 dB backed-off from P/sub 1 dB/. Generalized design equations for the Doherty amplifier are derived to show a careful choice of the output matching circuit and device scaling parameters can improve efficiencies at lower output power.

High-Efficiency Envelope-Tracking W-CDMA Base-Station Amplifier Using GaN HFETs

A high-efficiency wideband code-division multiple-access (W-CDMA) base-station amplifier is presented using high-performance GaN heterostructure field-effect transistors to achieve high gain and efficiency with good linearity. For high efficiency, class J/E operation was employed, which can attain up to 80% efficiency over a wide range of input powers and power supply voltages. For nonconstant envelope input, the average efficiency is further increased by employing the envelope-tracking architecture using a wide-bandwidth high-efficiency envelope amplifier. The linearity of overall system is enhanced by digital pre-distortion. The measured average power-added efficiency of the amplifier is as high as 50.7% for a W-CDMA modulated signal with peak-to-average power ratio of 7.67 dB at an average output power of 37.2 W and gain of 10.0 dB. We believe that this corresponds to the best efficiency performance among reported base-station power amplifiers for W-CDMA. The measured error vector magnitude is as low as 1.74% with adjacent channel leakage ratio of -51.0 dBc at an offset frequency of 5 MHz

Ultra-high speed modulation-doped field-effect transistors: a tutorial review

A tutorial review on the modulation-doped field-effect transistor (MODFET) and its application to ultra-low-noise, medium-power, and ultra-wide-band traveling-wave amplifiers as well as ultra-high-speed digital logic circuits is presented. It is believed that with further advances in material growth and device scaling significant improvements in cutoff frequencies, switching speed, noise, and power will be achieved in the near future. >

A Monolithic High-Efficiency 2.4-GHz 20-dBm SiGe BiCMOS Envelope-Tracking OFDM Power Amplifier

A monolithic SiGe BiCMOS envelope-tracking power amplifier (PA) is demonstrated for 802.11g OFDM applications at 2.4 GHz. The 4-mm2 die includes a high-efficiency high-precision envelope amplifier and a two-stage SiGe HBT PA for RF amplification. Off-chip digital predistortion is employed to improve EVM performance. The two-stage amplifier exhibits 12-dB gain, <5% EVM, 20-dBm OFDM output power, and an overall efficiency (including the envelope amplifier) of 28%.

Adaptive Multi-Band Multi-Mode Power Amplifier Using Integrated Varactor-Based Tunable Matching Networks

This paper presents a multi-band multi-mode class-AB power amplifier, which utilizes continuously tunable input and output matching networks integrated in a low-loss silicon-on-glass technology. The tunable matching networks make use of very high Q varactor diodes (Q>100 @ 2 GHz) in a low distortion anti-series configuration to achieve the desired source and load impedance tunability. A QUBIC4G (SiGe, ft=50 GHz) high voltage breakdown transistor (VCBO=14 V, VCEO>3.6 V) is used as active device. The realized adaptive amplifier provides 13 dB gain, 27-28 dBm output power at the 900, 1800, 1900 and 2100 MHz bands. For the communication bands above 1 GHz optimum load adaptation is facilitated resulting in efficiencies between 30%-55% over a 10 dB output power control range. The total chip area (including matching networks) of the amplifier is 8 mm2

A Combined Series-Parallel Hybrid Envelope Amplifier for Envelope Tracking Mobile Terminal RF Power Amplifier Applications

An improved envelope amplifier architecture for envelope tracking RF power amplifiers is presented, consisting of two switching amplifiers and one linear amplifier. The first switching amplifier and the linear amplifier provide wideband and high-efficiency operation, while the second switching amplifier provides a reduced bandwidth variable supply to the linear amplifier to further reduce power loss. The first switching amplifier and the linear amplifier are fabricated together in a 150 nm CMOS process, while the second switching amplifier is external. Measurements show a maximum average efficiency of 82% for a 10 MHz LTE signal with a 6 dB PAPR at 29.7 dBm output power and an SFDR of 63 dBc for a single tone of 5 MHz driving an 8 Ω load.