Circuitry including an RF front end circuit

• US 8,667,317 B1
• Filed: 09/17/2010
• Issued: 03/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/17/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qorvo US, Inc. (Qorvo, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: RF Micro Devices Incorporated (Qorvo, Inc.)
• Inventors: Khlat, Nadim, Ngo, Christopher Truong, Kadam, Dharma Reddy
• Primary Examiner(s): Cao, Chun
• Application Number:
  US12/884,981
• Time in Patent Office: 1,264 Days
• Field of Search: 713/500, 713/600, 455/91
• US Class Current: 713/500
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/385 for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0685 Clock or time synchronisation in a node; Intranode synchronisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 7/04 Speed or phase control by synchronisation signals H04L7/0075 takes precedence

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to RF front-end (RFFE) circuitry that includes multiple RFFE circuits, each of which may be provided by a separate integrated circuit (IC), front-end module, or both. As such, the RFFE circuits may be connected to one another using an RFFE serial communications bus. Further, one or more of the RFFE circuits may need an accurate clock source for analog-to-digital conversion (ADC), digital-to-analog conversion (DAC), calibration, sensor measurements, or the like. Instead of including an integral clock source circuit or receiving a separate external clock signal, an RFFE circuit may extract clock information from the RFFE serial communications bus to provide one or more clock signal. The clock information may be associated with one or more serial communications command via the RFFE serial communications bus.

Claims

1. Circuitry comprising:

a first Radio frequency front-end (RFFE) circuit coupled to an RFFE serial communications bus and adapted to;

detect a first command, which is provided on the RFFE serial communications bus by a control system;

determine clock information that is associated and provided with the first command; and

generate a first clock signal based on the clock information; and

at least a second RFFE circuit, such that each of the at least the second RFFE circuit is coupled to the RFFE serial communications bus.

2. The circuitry of claim 1 wherein the control system comprises a master device coupled to the RFFE serial communications bus and each of the first RFFE circuit and the at least the second RFFE circuit is a slave device.

3. The circuitry of claim 1 wherein a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) provides the control system.

4. The circuitry of claim 1 wherein the first command comprises a command frame.

5. The circuitry of claim 4 wherein the command frame comprises a slave device address and an RFFE command.

6. The circuitry of claim 5 wherein a length of the slave device address is four bits and a length of the RFFE command is eight bits.

7. The circuitry of claim 5 wherein the slave device address selects the first RFFE circuit.

8. The circuitry of claim 5 wherein the slave device address selects the one of the at least the second RFFE circuit.

9. The circuitry of claim 5 wherein the slave device address is not associated with a device that is coupled to the RFFE serial communications bus.

10. The circuitry of claim 5 wherein the RFFE command is a dummy RFFE command.

11. The circuitry of claim 5 wherein the first command further comprises a data frame.

12. The circuitry of claim 11 wherein the data frame comprises one byte of data.

13. The circuitry of claim 11 wherein the first command is an extended command and the data frame comprises an address having eight bits and at least one and not more than sixteen bytes of data.

14. The circuitry of claim 13 wherein the address is directed toward an unused location.

15. The circuitry of claim 11 wherein the first command is an extended long command and the data frame comprises an address having sixteen bits and at least one and not more than eight bytes of data.

16. The circuitry of claim 15 wherein the address is directed toward an unused location.

17. The circuitry of claim 1 wherein the RFFE serial communications bus is adapted to provide an RFFE clock signal and an RFFE data signal.

18. The circuitry of claim 17 wherein a frequency of the RFFE clock signal is less than or equal to about 26 megahertz.

19. The circuitry of claim 1 wherein the first RFFE circuit is further adapted to:

detect at least a second command, which is adjacent to the first command and is provided on the RFFE serial communications bus by the control system; and

further determine the clock information, which is further associated and provided with the second command.

20. The circuitry of claim 1 wherein the first command has a length, which renders the first command as unrecognizable by the first RFFE circuit and unrecognizable by the at least the second RFFE circuit.

21. The circuitry of claim 1 wherein the first RFFE circuit comprises a direct current (DC)-to-DC converter adapted to:

receive the first clock signal, such that a switching frequency of the DC-to-DC converter is based on a frequency of the first clock signal; and

provide a power output signal from the DC-to-DC converter.

22. The circuitry of claim 21 further comprising a radio frequency (RF) power amplifier (PA), which is adapted to receive and amplify an RF signal based on a PA envelope power signal to provide an RF output signal, and the power output signal is the PA envelope power signal.

23. The circuitry of claim 1 wherein the first RFFE circuit comprises a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) adapted to receive and convert a digital input signal to an analog output signal using the first clock signal.

24. The circuitry of claim 1 wherein the first RFFE circuit comprises an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) adapted to receive and convert an analog input signal to a digital output signal using the first clock signal.

25. The circuitry of claim 1 further comprising the control system.

26. A method comprising:

providing a first radio frequency front-end (RFFE) circuit coupled to an RFFE serial communications bus;

detecting a first command, which is provided on the RFFE serial communications bus by a control system;

determining clock information that is associated and provided with the first command; and

generating a first clock signal based on the clock information; and

providing at least a second RFFE circuit, such that each of the at least the second RFFE circuit is coupled to the RFFE serial communications bus.