Digital polar and ZVS contour based hybrid power amplifier

A power amplification apparatus, comprising:

• a rectangular-to-polar converter configured for receiving desired modulation data as baseband data and converting this modulation from rectangular modulation, having in-phase and quadrature components, to a digital polar output which has amplitude and phase form;
• pre-distortion circuits configured for receiving the digital polar output and calibrated to compensate for systematic and random errors in the power amplifier apparatus and outputting an amplitude data stream and phase data stream;
• a tunable impedance matching network having a transformation ratio determined by most significant bits (MSBs) generated from at least a portion of said pre-distortion circuits and including digital envelope modulation through which a load is driven;
• a phase and duty cycle modulation circuit coupled for receiving outputs from said pre-distortion circuits along with a periodic carrier signal, with said modulation circuit configured for modulating the phase and duty cycle to produce a modulated output;
• and
• a digital polar power amplifier (PA) connected for driving the load in response to drawing current through said tunable impedance matching network, said digital polar power amplifier comprising multiple parallel sections of switching power amplifier (PA) which draw current through an inductor to a variable drain capacitance and are individually turned on or off in response to receiving least significant bits (LSBs) of modulated output from said pre-distortion circuits to control output power level;
• wherein capacitance of said variable drain capacitance and impedance of said tunable impedance matching network are set according to ZVS conditions and duty cycle when said power amplification apparatus is operating in a ZVS mode.

A digital polar and ZVS contour based hybrid power amplification apparatus, comprising:

• a rectangular-to-polar converter configured for receiving desired modulation data as baseband data and converting this modulation from rectangular modulation, having in-phase and quadrature components, to a digital polar output which has amplitude and phase form;
• pre-distortion circuits configured for receiving the digital polar output and calibrated to compensate for systematic and random errors in the power amplifier apparatus and outputting an amplitude data stream and phase data stream;
• wherein said pre-distortion circuits comprise an amplitude modulation to amplitude modulation (AM-AM) pre-distortion circuit configured for outputting a group of most significant bits (MSBs) and a group of least significant bits (LSBs), and an amplitude modulation to phase modulation (AM-PM) pre-distortion circuit outputting a digital bit stream;
• a local oscillator configured for receiving center frequency information and generating phase and duty cycle of a periodic carrier signal output;
• a tunable impedance matching network having a transformation ratio determined by most significant bits (MSBs) generated from at least a portion of said pre-distortion circuits and including digital envelope modulation through which a load is driven;
• a phase and duty cycle modulation circuit coupled for receiving outputs from said pre-distortion circuits along with said periodic carrier signal output from said local oscillator, with said phase and duty cycle modulation circuit configured for modulating the phase and duty cycle to generate a modulated output;
• and
• a digital polar power amplifier (PA) connected for driving the load in response to drawing current through said tunable impedance matching network, said digital polar power amplifier comprising multiple parallel sections of switching power amplifier (PA) which draw current through an inductor to a variable drain capacitance and are individually turned on or off in response to receiving least significant bits (LSBs) of modulated output from said pre-distortion circuits to control output power level;
• wherein said most significant bits (MSBs) are configured for controlling duty cycle of said switching power amplifier and impedance of said tunable impedance utilizing ZVS contour principles, while the LSBs of the amplitude data stream are configured for controlling stages of said switching power amplifier in a digital polar manner;
• and
• wherein capacitance of said variable drain capacitance and impedance of said tunable impedance matching network are configured for being set according to ZVS conditions and duty cycle when said power amplification apparatus is operating in a ZVS mode.