A linear assisted switching envelope amplifier for a UHF polar transmitter

Abstract

Spectrally efficient wireless communication standards impose stringent linearity specifications, which would require traditional IQ transmitters to operate with back-offed and power inefficient linear RF power amplifiers (PAs). In order to overcome such a significant limitation, alternative architectures have been proposed, as those based on the envelope elimination and restoration technique. An example of the application of this technique is the polar transmitter. In this paper, a UHF polar transmitter is presented, combining switching and linear stages in the envelope amplifier as to achieve both wide bandwidth and high efficiency, when drain modulating a GaN HEMT Class E RF PA. Several tests, using EDGE, TETRA, and WCDMA standards have been performed with good results.