Transmit Signal Routing With Filter Reuse for Uplink Carrier Aggregation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In wireless devices supporting uplink carrier aggregation, simultaneous transmission across multiple frequency bands is constrained by power management units delivering efficient supply voltages, leading to issues with isolation, gain variation, and efficiency performance, particularly when mid-band and high-band PAiD modules share a common power management unit.
Innovation Solution
A front-end architecture is implemented with a filter-less power amplifier module that routes signals to integrated duplexer modules for filtering, reducing power consumption and avoiding filter duplication, allowing for efficient uplink carrier-aggregation operations across mid-band and high-band signals.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If mid-band and high-band PAiD modules share a common power management unit, then device complexity and cost are reduced, but power consumption efficiency deteriorates and gain variation occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the power amplification function into two separate modules: a filter-less power amplifier module for mid-band signals and a PAiD module for high-band signals. This segmentation allows each module to be optimized independently for its specific frequency band, avoiding the power efficiency and gain variation issues that arise when sharing a common power management unit, while still reducing overall device complexity through filter reuse.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements universality by enabling the high-band filters in the PAiD module to serve dual purposes: filtering high-band signals and filtering mid-band signals. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for separate filters in the filter-less power amplifier module, reducing device complexity and cost while maintaining power efficiency through independent module operation.
2Use of energy by moving object
If separate power management units are provided for mid-band and high-band modules, then power efficiency is improved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the filtering function into the PAiD module, allowing the high-band filters to handle both high-band and mid-band signals. This combining of functions enables a single power management unit to efficiently control both amplification modules, improving power efficiency while avoiding the complexity and cost of separate power management units.
3Reliability
If duplicate power amplifier and duplexer modules are used for mid-band and high-band, then transmission reliability is improved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements universality by designing the PAiD module to handle both mid-band and high-band signals through its high-band filters and duplexer. This eliminates the need for duplicate separate modules for each frequency band, reducing device complexity and cost while maintaining transmission reliability through dedicated amplification paths for each band.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed herein are systems, circuits, architectures and methods related to front-end architectures for wireless devices configured for uplink carrier aggregation. The disclosed front-end architectures include a first power amplifier module with filters and a second filter-less power amplifier module. The front-end architectures are configured to route signals from the filter-less power amplifier module to the first power amplifier module for filtering. This reduces the size of the second filter-less module relative to a module that utilizes its own filters, thereby reducing costs, reducing size, and/or providing additional space for other modules or other functionality to be included in a wireless device.