3-Level envelope delta-sigma modulation RF signal generator for high-efficiency transmitters

Abstract

This paper presents a 0.13 μm CMOS 3-level envelope delta-sigma modulation (EDSM) RF signal generator, which synthesizes a 2.6 GHz-centered fully symmetrical 3-level EDSM signal for high-efficiency power amplifier architectures. It consists of an I-Q phase modulator, a Class B wideband buffer, an up-conversion mixer, a D2S, and a Class AB wideband drive amplifier. To preserve fast phase transition in the 3-state envelope level, the wideband buffer has an RLC load and the driver amplifier uses a second-order BPF as its load to provide enough bandwidth. To achieve an accurate 3-state envelope level in the up-mixer output, the LO bias level is optimized. The I-Q phase modulator adopts a modified quadrature passive mixer topology and mitigates the I-Q crosstalk problem using a 50% duty cycle in LO clocks. The fabricated chip provides an average output power of -1.5 dBm and an error vector magnitude (EVM) of 3.89% for 3GPP LTE 64 QAM input signals with a channel bandwidth of 10/20 MHz, as well as consuming 60 mW for both channels from a 1.2 V/2.5 V supply voltage.