SBIR Phase I: Highly Efficient Transmitter for Emerging Wireless Communication Systems in CMOS Technologies

这个项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力将发生在消费电子行业。移动计算和无线互联网的最新发展导致对配备具有多标准功能的无线局域网（WLAN）的便携式计算机和智能手机的需求不断增加。无线通信系统的市场每年超过60亿套，全互补金属氧化物半导体（CMOS）发射机承诺提供一个通用技术平台，以实现多标准、灵活、强大、集成和更便宜的解决方案。提高高性能功率放大器（pa）的功率效率和产量将对射频（RF）发射器的效率、可靠性和生产成本产生重大影响，从而确保消费电子行业的可持续增长。PA约占蜂窝基站总功耗的22%，而冷却占13%。对于手持设备，PA在传输信息时要消耗约40%的电池电量；因此，效率更高的保护区将有助于发展更环保的技术。社会效益将包括节省电力，更灵活和更便宜的无线通信设备。该小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目将专注于设计适用于深亚微米CMOS技术实现的宽带收发器的高效线性RF发射器。其特殊的杠杆作用是基于PA部分的数字控制，使得功耗与传输到天线的功率完全相关，而功率增益和信号带宽则通过简单而高效的数字算法精确控制。研究小组建议开发一种数字辅助线性PA架构，通过1:3匝比变压器和优化的阻抗匹配网络与天线耦合，以在中等和深度回退功率水平下实现超过60%的独特节能。当前基于管理的PA被战略性地分割并自动优化以获得最佳当前效率。该架构灵活，非常适合新兴的物联网市场。对于外形因素不是问题的情况，该架构可以配备动态电源系统，以进一步优化功率。通过结合这些技术，预计在9 dB回退功率下的平均功率效率水平为25%；这些PAE水平比现有解决方案高出60%以上。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will occur in the consumer electronics industry. Recent developments in mobile computing and wireless internet have led to an increasing demand for portable computers and smart phones equipped with wireless local area networks (WLAN) operating with multi-standard capabilities. The market for wireless communications systems exceeds 6 billion units per year, and full complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transmitters promise a common technology platform to enable multi-standard, flexible, robust, integrated, and cheaper solutions. Improving the power efficiency and yield of high-performance power amplifiers (PAs) will have significant impact on the efficiency, reliability, and production cost of radio frequency (RF) transmitters, ensuring sustainable growth of the consumer electronics industry. The PA is responsible for approximately 22% of the overall power consumption of cellular base-stations while cooling represents 13%. For handheld devices, the PA is responsible for around 40% of battery power while transmitting information; hence, more efficient PAs will contribute to the development of greener technologies. Societal benefits will include power savings, more flexible and cheaper wireless communication devices.This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will focus on the design of highly-efficient linear RF transmitters suitable for broadband transceivers implemented in deep submicron CMOS technologies. Its specialized leverage is based on the digital control of PA sections such that the power consumption is fully correlated with the power delivered to the antenna, while the power gain and signal bandwidth are accurately controlled with a simple yet efficient digital algorithm. The research team proposes to develop a digitally-assisted linear PA architecture coupled to the antenna through a 1:3 turns ratio transformer and an optimized impedance matching network to achieve unique power savings of over 60% at moderate and deep back-off power levels. The current management based PA is strategically segmented and automatically optimized for best possible current efficiency. The architecture is flexible and well suited for the emerging IoT markets. For cases where the form factor is not an issue, the architecture can be equipped with a dynamic power supply system to further optimize for power. By incorporating these techniques, average power efficiency levels in the range of 25% at 9 dB back-off power are expected; these PAE levels surpass existing solutions by more than 60%.