We present the first all-digital PLL and polar transmitter for mobile phones. They are part of a single-chip GSM/EDGE transceiver SoC fabricated in a 90 nm digital CMOS process. The circuits are architectured from the ground up to be compatible with digital deep-submicron CMOS processes and be readily integrateable with a digital baseband and application processor. To achieve this, we exploit the new paradigm of a deep-submicron CMOS process environment by leveraging on the fast switching times of MOS transistors, the fine lithography and the precise device matching, while avoiding problems related to the limited voltage headroom. The transmitter architecture is fully digital and utilizes the wideband direct frequency modulation capability of the all-digital PLL. The amplitude modulation is realized digitally by regulating the number of active NMOS transistor switches in accordance with the instantaneous amplitude. The conventional RF frequency synthesizer architecture, based on a voltage-controlled oscillator and phase/frequency detector and charge-pump combination, has been replaced with a digitally controlled oscillator and a time-to-digital converter. The transmitter performs GMSK modulation with less than 0.5/spl deg/ rms phase error, -165 dBc/Hz phase noise at 20 MHz offset, and 10 /spl mu/s settling time. The 8-PSK EDGE spectral mask is met with 1.2% EVM. The transmitter occupies 1.5 mm/sup 2/ and consumes 42 mA at 1.2 V supply while producing 6 dBm RF output power.

/pdf/all-digital-pll-and-transmitter-for-mobile-phones-2mf5fxyzjo.pdf

All-digital PLL and transmitter for mobile phones

https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/10945/24839/1/singlesidebandtr00elli.pdf

Single sideband transmission by envelope elimination and restoration.

This work presents a fully integrated linearized CMOS RF amplifier, integrated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS process. The amplifier is implemented on a single chip, requiring no external matching or tuning networks. Peak output power is 27 dBm with a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 34%. The amplitude modulator, implemented on the same chip as the RF amplifier, modulates the supply voltage of the RF amplifier. This results in a power efficient amplification of nonconstant envelope RF signals. The RF power amplifier and amplitude modulator are optimized for the amplification of EDGE signals. The EDGE spectral mask and EVM requirements are met over a wide power range. The maximum EDGE output power is 23.8 dBm and meets the class E3 power requirement of 22 dBm. The corresponding output spectrum at 400 and 600 kHz frequency offset is -59 dB and -70 dB. The EVM has an RMS value of 1.60% and a peak value of 5.87%.

A 1.75-GHz polar modulated CMOS RF power amplifier for GSM-EDGE

A digitally modulated power amplifier (DPA) in 1.2 V 0.13 mum SOI CMOS is presented, to be used as a building block in multi-standard, multi-band polar transmitters. It performs direct amplitude modulation of an input RF carrier by digitally controlling an array of 127 unary-weighted and three binary-weighted elementary gain cells. The DPA is based on a novel two-stage topology, which allows seamless operation from 800 MHz through 2 GHz, with a full-power efficiency larger than 40% and a 25.2 dBm maximum envelope power. Adaptive digital predistortion is exploited for DPA linearization. The circuit is thus able to reconstruct 21.7 dBm WCDMA/EDGE signals at 1.9 GHz with 38% efficiency and a higher than 10 dB margin on all spectral specifications. As a result of the digital modulation technique, a higher than 20.1 % efficiency is guaranteed for WCDMA signals with a peak-to-average power ratio as high as 10.8 dB. Furthermore, a 15.3 dBm, 5 MHz WiMAX OFDM signal is successfully reconstructed with a 22% efficiency and 1.53% rms EVM. A high 10-bit nominal resolution enables a wide-range TX power control strategy to be implemented, which greatly minimizes the quiescent consumption down to 10 mW. A 16.4% CDMA average efficiency is thus obtained across a > 70 dB power control range, while complying with all the spectral specifications.

A 25 dBm Digitally Modulated CMOS Power Amplifier for WCDMA/EDGE/OFDM With Adaptive Digital Predistortion and Efficient Power Control

An enhanced data-rates for GSM evolution (EDGE) transmitter using a nonlinear GSM-type PA is presented. It is based on a novel polar loop architecture that employs separate feedback control of the amplitude and the phase of the output signal. With this approach, the problems with AM-to-PM as well as AM-to-AM of the nonlinear PA are essentially eliminated. In addition, this architecture allows for a large dynamic output power control range, as required by the GSM specification. The transmitter uses a standard I/Q interface and does not require the extraction of amplitude and phase modulation in the digital domain. The dual feedback loop ensures robust performance even under voltage-standing wave ratio variations without using an isolator. No external PA filtering is required to meet the transmitter noise in the receive band. The EDGE spectral mask is met with an rms error vector magnitude of <3% at 29 dBm at the antenna, corresponding to 2 dB above nominal maximum output power. There is no mode change between GMSK and EDGE, and the transmitter operates seamlessly in multislot Enhanced General Packet Radio Service. The polar modulation transmitter meets or exceeds the GSM-type approval requirements for both EDGE and GMSK in quad band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz).

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE polar loop transmitter

This 0.5-/spl mu/m SiGe BiCMOS polar modulator IC adds EDGE transmit capability to a GSM transceiver IC without any RF filters. Envelope information is extracted from the transmit IF and applied to the phase-modulated carrier in an RF variable gain amplifier which follows the integrated transmit VCO. The dual-band IC supports all four GSM bands. In EDGE mode, the IC produces more than 1 dBm of output power with more than 6 dB of margin to the transmit spectrum mask and less than 3% rms phase error. In GSM mode, more than 7 dBm of output power is produced with noise in the receive band less than -164 dBc/Hz.

A polar modulator transmitter for GSM/EDGE

Modelling and managing user-induced rotation and blockage in handheld multi-antenna panel devices are some of the pivotal challenges of future narrow beam millimeter wave (mmWave) communications. While studies have been conducted separately on multi-panel beam management (BM) performance and mmWave user blockage loss, no study has been made to date, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, on how hand blockage influences beam alignment accuracy in the context of 5G new radio (NR). This paper presents a link-level evaluation on the impact of user hand grip in BM performance under a 5G NR standard compliant signalling and measurement framework. A high-detail handset model is employed, equipped with multiple panels and different hand grips obtained with CST Microwave Studio, a 3D electromagnetic field simulation tool. Additionally, this study incorporates aspects such as intra-cell mobility, device rotation, hand grip variability and changing propagation conditions. Results show that hand blockage can significantly degrade beam alignment performance, particularly for dual-hand grips in predominantly line-of-sight (LOS) environments. Finally, results suggest that the current blockage model proposed by 3GPP must be further enhanced to account for blockage on a per-panel basis. This would allow a more accurate portrayal of user hand behaviour, which would support the analysis and design of effective solutions to overcome the user’s unpredictable shadowing effects at mmWave frequencies.

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2022.3211525

Hand Blockage Impact on 5G mmWave Beam Management Performance

5th Generation (5G) millimeter wave (mmWave) communications are enabled through directive and narrow beams that mitigate these frequencies' challenging propagation conditions. In the future, 5G-Advanced and 6G will go even higher in the frequency spectrum, to allow for progressively larger bandwidths. The need for a larger number of narrower beams will put a strain in the current analog beamforming (BF) based beam management (BM) framework. This paper proposes an alternative signalling method for BM to parallelize the beam sweeping procedure using a hybrid analog-digital (HAD) BF architecture to enable mmWave signal multiplexing with a manageable overhead. The proposed solution is shown to significantly enhance beam alignment performance while reducing signalling overhead and latency.

J. Harrebek

Papers

A polar modulator transmitter for GSM/EDGE

Hand Blockage Impact on 5G mmWave Beam Management Performance

Improving Beam Management Signalling for 5G NR Systems using Hybrid Beamforming