Asymmetric Multilevel Outphasing (AMO): A New Architecture for All-Silicon mm-Wave Transmitter ICs.

摘要

In this project we focused on achieving the highest average efficiency for mm-wave transmitters ever reported in silicon ICs. The reason for the focus on average efficiency, as opposed to solely on peak efficiency, is that it is average efficiency that captures most completely the power requirements of an RF transmitter. In addition, our goal of achieving 2 GHz signal bandwidth placed extreme demands on lowering the power consumption of the digital baseband part of the system, which is responsible for high- speed control of the asymmetric multilevel outphasing (AMO) architecture and also nonlinear predistortion of the transmitter. Finally, the foundation of the entire system concept are the high- efficiency, high-power PAs that work at mm-wave frequencies.