Power amplifier with power feedback

• US 8,344,806 B1
• Filed: 09/29/2010
• Issued: 01/01/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qorvo International Pte. Ltd. (Qorvo, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amalfi Semiconductor, Inc. (Qorvo, Inc.)
• Inventors: Franck, Stephen, Scott, Baker, Maxim, George
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Khanh V
• Application Number:
  US12/893,643
• Time in Patent Office: 825 Days
• Field of Search: 330/127, 330/129, 330/285, 330/289, 330/296, 330/297
• US Class Current: 330/285
• CPC Class Codes: H03F 1/0227 using supply converters
• CPC Class Codes: H03F 1/0238 using supply converters
• CPC Class Codes: H03F 3/195 in integrated circuits

Abstract

A power amplifier using a drain (collector) power control loop in which the feedback signal is an estimated output power level computed with a linear summation of the output sensed voltage and current. Both RF and baseband voltage and current sensing are possible, and voltage-mode or current-mode signal processing are feasible. This control loop technique is applicable to any means of drain power control circuits such as: supply regulators, DC-DC converters and others. Voltage error amplifiers can be used in conjunction with voltage feedback network, while current error amplifiers can be used with current feedback networks. Regulator sharing between different bands may be used as an area and cost reduction solution. The linear voltage and current summation driven power control technique can be also applied to the gate (base) power control scheme. Similarly, voltage-mode and current-mode signal processing can be implemented.

Claims

1. A power amplifier system, comprising:

a main signal path;

one or more power control ports;

a baseband current sensor;

a baseband voltage sensor

a power control block driven by an output power estimator block based on at least one of, a linear and a higher order summation of a sensed output voltage and current signals from the baseband current and voltage sensors, the baseband current and voltage sensors providing baseband sensing when the voltage and current are already in their envelope form and summation without multiplication, the voltage and current sensors directly driving the output power estimator block.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the power amplifier system is achieved using at a semiconductor processes selected from at least one of, CMOS, BCD, bipolar, BiCMOS, hetero-junction, compound, GaAs, GaN, SiGe and InP.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein a power control technique is used that is selected from at least one of, a drain power control, a gate power control and a combination of drain and gate power control.

4. The system of claim 1 using one of the following signal processing techniques:

a voltage-mode, a current-mode, a hybrid voltage and current.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is used for at least one of, a constant envelope application that is a resistor divider, reactive divider, or resistive-reactive divider, a modulated variable envelope application that is a linear power amplifier, a multi-mode application where the power amplifier operates in both linear and non-linear modes.

6. The system of claim 1 further comprising at least one of, an open-loop control, a closed-loop control, and a combination of open-loop and closed-loop control of an output power level.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein control block architectures is used selected from at least one of, a single control point in the signal path, multiple control points in a signal path, a single feedback quantity and multiple feed-forward quantities.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the power control block uses at least one of, RF, baseband, a combination of RF and baseband signal sensing for the output voltage and current used by the power control block.

9. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

using digital-to-analog converters to provide at least one of, gain, offset, pedestal, threshold and other adjustability to different sections of a non-linear control curve.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising using at least one of, a power control loop is used between signal paths of multiple bands, multiple modes of operation and a combination of multiple-bands and multiple modes.

11. The system of claim 1 further comprising, using multiple loops to control output power levels driven by one or more estimated power levels at different points in a power amplifier signal path.

12. The system of claim 1 further comprising, providing adjustability to a power amplifier control system using at least one of, digital-to-analog converters, analog controlled circuits for at least one of, feedback or feed-forward path currents, voltages, resistors and capacitors.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein in response to load conductance changes over a broad range voltage limiting or current limiting is changed.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein in response to increasing a feedback due to adding current feedback, a feedback network ratio is adjusted to restore a same nominal gain under a nominal load.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein an error amplifier is controlled by modifying a feedback.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein in response to a bad load an alert is provided.