Development of a tunable power amplifier for handsets

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Mobile handset radio frequency power amplifiers (PA) are a critical and competitive component of Canada's wireless economy. As opposed to infrastructure PAs, mobile PAs are severely restricted in size and cost, and are required to deal with large dynamic changes in environment, operating frequency and modulation types. So far, mobile PAs are overbuilt to meet these disparate demands, resulting in reduced performance, reduced handset battery life and excessive heating. Introducing tunable elements into a PA allows dynamic optimization to mitigate these problems. Research will begin with understanding mobile transmitter specifications for LTE, as this is considered the most popular and challenging network. This will be followed by a study of present PA semiconductor technologies, such as GaAs HBT, GaN pHEMT, and possibly SiCMOS, for amenability to integrated tunable elements. Expected improvements in PA performance will be simulated with attention to frequency range extension, efficiency, size, linearity, variance in loading, low voltage operation and temperature. Such simulation will also assess the viability and requirements of commercially available tuning technologies. Once a PA of appropriate technology is chosen, a tuning sub-system will be fabricated, integrated with the PA, and the system measured. BlackBerry Ltd. is a leading Canadian telecommunications company and mobile handset manufacturer. It is well known worldwide for innovation and high standards in microwave radio technology, for which tunable transmitters offer a direct competitive advantage.