US 11,381,264 B2 · System-aware RF front ends for wireless communication systems

Abstract

System-aware radio frequency (RF) front ends for wireless communication systems are provided. High complexity communication systems, such as Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) fifth generation (5G)-new radio (NR) systems, impose severe board area, volume, thermal and interference penalties on wireless devices. In the case of 5G-NR, this is due to the number of bands to be supported, the instantaneous bandwidth and spectral efficiency among other parameters. Other communications systems can involve high modulation of other parameters that similarly impose such penalties. Embodiments described herein provide a co-designed RF front end architecture that utilizes system knowledge (e.g., from baseband or other digital control circuitry, from antenna feedback, etc.) to dynamically adjust the parameters of various RF front-end components. System-aware RF front ends are thus able to improve and optimize performance criteria (e.g., to reduce the above penalties in complex communications systems).

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system-aware radio frequency (RF) front end, comprising:

a transmit (TX) node configured to receive an RF TX signal from a transceiver;
a receive (RX) node configured to transmit an RF RX signal to the transceiver;
an antenna node configured to couple to an RF antenna;
a sensor configured to couple to the RF antenna and detect an output RF condition;
at least one RF power amplifier (PA) coupled between the TX node and the antenna node;
at least one RF low noise amplifier (LNA) coupled between the RX node and the antenna node;
and
a processor configured to:
receive meta information comprising a communication system condition from control circuitry, wherein the communication system condition comprises the output RF condition detected by the sensor;
and
process the meta information to determine a control scheme for the system-aware RF front end based on the meta information, wherein the control scheme compensates for the communication system condition.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System-aware RF front ends for wireless communication systems

Life of this patent

System-aware RF front ends for wireless communication systems

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20