A Multiphase Digital Pulsewidth Modulated Polar Transmitter Architecture With Reactive Combiner for Improved Efficiency

Abstract

This paper presents a new method of reactive-combiner structure to be used as part of a multiphase digital pulsewidth modulated polar transmitter (DPWMPT). It overcomes the limitations of previous implementations of the multiphase pulse-modulated polar transmitter related to terminating pulsewidth modulation (PWM) harmonics located outside the passband, thereby improving both PWM harmonic suppression by using multiphase aliasing-free digital PWM technique and increasing overall efficiency by using reactive combining. For validation, a prototype transmitter was implemented and tested with a 64-QAM 20-MHz bandwidth long-term evolution (LTE) downlink signal with a 7.5-dB peak-to-average power ratio at 2140 MHz. The prototype dual-phase DPWMPT architecture achieved an output power level of 37 dBm and power-added efficiency of 33.5% while passing the stringent spectral requirements of the LTE standard for small-cell base stations using only simply memoryless predistortion correction.