Hierarchical-Table-Based Model for All-Digital RF Transmitters

Abstract

Transmitters based on nonlinear radio-frequency (RF) modulators and switched-mode power amplifiers are systems that, at least theoretically, can provide high linearity and energy-efficient generation of RF signals at the same time. However, the nonlinear memory-affected behavior remains an issue hindering practical applications. This paper shows that it is possible to model the nonlinear memory of such circuits based on time-domain observations and how to use this information in computationally efficient time-domain RF circuit models. In contrast to other works, this model covers the full bandwidth of the active device (dc–10 GHz) and it uses hierarchical data structuring to adaptively find a compact model without prior knowledge of the circuit’s memory depth. The data for this work were gained from a laboratory setup, designed to be used as an LTE transmitter for a signal bandwidth of 20 MHz at a fixed center frequency of 2.5 GHz.