Multi-Path RF Power Amplifier for Linearity and Efficiency
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing power amplifiers face challenges in achieving both linearity and power efficiency due to environmental and manufacturing variations, as current approaches fail to adequately account for these factors, leading to undesirable performance characteristics.
Innovation Solution
A radio frequency power amplifier design that splits the input signal into multiple sub-paths, each with configurable phase, gain, and bias control, allowing for piecewise linear responses, and combines these signals to achieve concurrent linearity and power efficiency targets across a full amplitude range.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If phase and gain control are applied to the input signal before the power amplifier, then linearity can be improved, but the system cannot sufficiently account for environmental and manufacturing variations, resulting in degraded reliability
Solution Approach 1:
The power amplifier is divided into multiple parallel sub-paths (first sub-path, second sub-path, etc.), each with independent phase and gain control. This segmentation allows each sub-path to be optimized independently for linearity while the combined output achieves robustness against environmental and manufacturing variations through diversified signal paths.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts phase and gain parameters for each sub-path based on operating conditions. By changing these parameters across multiple sub-paths and combining their outputs, the system achieves both high linearity and reliability that cannot be obtained by controlling a single path, as it can compensate for variations in any individual sub-path.
2Reliability
If multiple sub-paths with configurable phase, gain and bias control are used, then concurrent linearity and power efficiency targets can be achieved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The amplifier is segmented into multiple sub-paths with independent control, allowing simultaneous optimization of linearity and efficiency. Each sub-path can be configured for specific operating conditions, and their combined output achieves both performance targets that would be difficult to reach with a single path.
Solution Approach 2:
Each sub-path control unit provides multiple functions (phase control, gain control, bias control) in a unified structure. This multi-functionality allows the system to achieve concurrent linearity and power efficiency targets while managing complexity through standardized control blocks that can be replicated across sub-paths.
3Device complexity
If a single path power amplifier is used, then the device complexity is low, but it cannot achieve both linearity and power efficiency targets across the full amplitude range
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of a single path, the amplifier is divided into multiple parallel sub-paths, each handling specific portions of the signal. This segmentation enables each sub-path to be optimized for different operating conditions, achieving both linearity and power efficiency across the full amplitude range that a single path cannot accomplish.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically configures multiple sub-paths with adjustable phase, gain, and bias parameters to adapt to different operating conditions across the full amplitude range. This dynamic configuration allows the amplifier to maintain both linearity and power efficiency under varying conditions, unlike a static single-path design.
Data Source
AI summary
A radio frequency power amplifier for processing an RF input signal is provided. A splitter may distribute an RF input signal into a plurality of sub-path input signals distributed over a plurality of paths. A plurality of sub-path control units may receive the sub-path input signals and provide one or more of phase control, gain control and bias control to produce a plurality of sub-path output signals distributed over a plurality of configurable sub-paths, each path comprising at least one configurable path and at least one sub-path signal having a piecewise linear response. A combiner network may combine the sub-path output signals to generate an RF output signal. The plurality of configurable sub-paths may be configured such that the RF output concurrently achieves a linearity target and a power efficiency target across a full amplitude range of the RF output signal.