An Overview of Efficiency Enhancement
Techniques for RF Power Amplifiers
Caroline de Frana
PGMICRO - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
carolfranca90@gmail.com
Abstract Enhancement techniques to radio frequency power
amplifiers (RFPAs) are a trend in the telecommunications systems.
The decrease of the channel in complementary metal-oxide
semiconductor (CMOs) process puts a challenge to deliver high
power in transmitters with low supply voltage, and the increase of
the data rates with the new services is offered is some of the
obstacles to be overcome in the transmitters to 4G, 5G and so on.
Some techniques are developed in this context. The Doherty power
amplifier, Envelope tracking power amplifier (ET), Envelope
Elimination and Restoration to power amplifier are techniques
with the object to increase the global efficiency in the RFPAs. The
digital baseband predistortion (DPD) is a technique to linearize the
RFPAs to allow them to have a linear amplifier in the chain to have
a signal with good quality without distortion. Then this work is a
review about these techniques.
KeywordsPower amplifier; Doherty amplifier; Envelope
tracking, Envelope elimination and restoration, Pre-distortion;
Efficiency enhancement.
I. INTRODUCTION
Due the demand for the large-scale integration levels and to
reduce cost of the production the use of CMOS devices in RF
transmitters have been widely used, instead of the poor linearity
and efficiency low level achieved.
However, modern wireless systems as 4G are established in
an ortogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) that has
high PAPR (peak-to-average power ratio). Thus, the power
amplifier is working in the most part of the time in an area of
low efficiency. Another challenge in circuits design is to extend
the battery life of handsets. Therefore, the design to enhance the
efficiency of PAs, beyond to resolve the problem of PAPR is
essential to increase the autonomy of the battery of handsets.
To compensate the nonlinearities of the system, it is
essential to work with linear power amplifiers like Class A or
Class AB but these classes of PAs do not achieve high
performance. This PAs do not achieve high PAE in back-off
region because they obtain maximum efficiency in a single
power level and, when the drive is backed-off the efficiency
drops sharply [1]. Due to the high PAPR, the PA works most of
the time in a region of low efficiency. Such poor PA efficiency
critically deteriorates the overall system performance, since the
PA is the circuit that consumes the highest amount of power in
a wireless transmitter. Improving the PA efficiency is highly
desirable to extend the battery autonomy in handsets. In this
context, the design of PAs with enhanced efficiency for modern
wireless systems is of paramount importance.
Doherty, Envelope-Tracking (ET), Envelope Elimination
and Restoration (EER) are the most famous and classic
techniques of circuits to improve efficiency. Linearization
techniques as Digital Baseband Pre-distortion (DPD) are widely
used to improve the back-off and especially combined with
circuits with high efficiency like Doherty power amplifier.
A Doherty amplifier was the first technique proposed of
efficiency enhancement and it is the most known enhancement
technique, due the simplicity of implementation. The basic
concept of Doherty it is two PAs: a Class AB and a Class C,
combined with a fourth-wave transmission line. The Doherty
has described like an active load-pull technique because it is
possible to modify the RF load due the current from the Class
AB or from the Class C PA. This is the technique used in this
work.
Linearization techniques as feed-forward, Digital Baseband
Predistortion and feedback have been widely used in RF
systems, to improve efficiency and to correctly distortions.
Nonlinearities as memory effects (due the network impedance)
that results in distortion of the signal, can be resolved using
DPD before the PA. With linearization techniques, it is possible
to extend the range of compression region of the PA, which
results in a gain of efficiency [1].
This work is organized as follow. Section II introduces the
theory of a classic Doherty amplifier. Section III describes the
basics concepts Envelope tracking PA. Section IV is about the
Envelope Elimination and Restoration PA. Section V describes
the linearization technique to PAs, the Digital Baseband
Predistortion. Section VI summarizes the conclusions.
II. THE DOHERTY AMPLIFIER TECHNIQUE
A common behavioral of the power amplifiers is they
achieve maximum efficiency when the Pout it is in the peak of
saturation, after this range, the efficiency decreases
substantially. Indeed, system with transmitters which have a
PAPR between 3 and 6 dB, is a probably candidate to use the
Doherty amplifier [1]. This technique consist in to enhance the
efficiency of the back-off region (until 6 dB).
A traditional Doherty amplifier combines two outputs
of two linear radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers, a main
amplifier biased in Class AB, and an auxiliary power
amplifier biased in Class C, through an impedance-inverting
networking. A fourth-wave transmission line designs this
impedance-inverting networking of the output. In the input, to
match the delay motivated by this transmission line of the
output, it is used another fourth-wave transmission line. A
power divider (splitter) it is responsible to divide the power at
the input of the PAs. This architecture is based is based on the
load modulation effect that the auxiliary amplifier has on the
main amplifier [2]. From Fig. 1 we have an e.g. of a classic
Doherty amplifier, in Fig. 2 a simplified schematic of Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Block diagram of classic Doherty Amplifier.
Fig. 2. Simplified schematic of block diagram of Doherty Amplifier.
Applying Kirchhoff law in the circuit of Fig. 2, the voltage
across the load ZL is given by:
VL=ZL.(IM+IA)
Where IM are the current supplied by the main amplifier and
IA by the auxiliary amplifier. At low outputs, when the auxiliary
amplifier is turned off and IA=0, the load seen by the Class AB
amplifier is given by:
ZM=ZL=2.RO
Therefore, if both currents are different from zero, the load
seen by each current source (or amplifier) is given by:
ZM=ZL.(1+IA/IM)
ZA=ZL.(1+IM/IA)
At low input drives, only the main amplifier is turned-on
and it operates linearly and at the output see a load of 4RL due
the effect of the fourth-wave transmission line [2]. When the
input achieve around 6 dB below of the potency of saturation
(Psat) than the auxiliary amplifier is turned-on and, the main
amplifier see at output a load of 2Rl. In this case, the decreased
of the load is due the current of the auxiliary amplifier. In
Doherty amplifier, the change of the load line of the main
amplifier is responsible by the overall efficiency. The idealized
behavioral of drain efficiency of the PA it is show in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. Idealized drain efficiency for an ideal Doherty Amplifier.
III. THE ENVELOPE TRACKING TECHINIQUE
The objective of envelope tracking is to improve the
efficiency of PAs carrying high peak to average power (PAPR)
signals. The most part of the power dissipation in the power
amplifiers is due the use of constant supply voltage, so, the most
part of the power is waste by heat. This behavioral is show in
the Fig. 4. The efficiency of an ET PA is improve by varying
the PA supply voltage according with the envelope of the RF
signal. To low power input the supply voltage decreases
substantially so, the power dissipation by heat drops down in
this region [2]. The main object is guarantee that the PA works
(1) in the region of the maximum efficiency possible to every input
power.
(2)
(3)
(4)
Fig. 4. Power dissipation: first to a regular PA, second to the ETPA [3].
In a typical envelope tracking system, the supply voltage is
adjusted dynamically to track the RF envelope at high
instantaneous power. Here, the PA operates with high
efficiency in compression [3]. The envelope- tracking power
amplifier is formed by an envelope amplifier and a radio
frequency power amplifier. The envelope amplifier (EA) will
be responsible to control the supply voltage of the RFPA. The
EA forces the RFPA always to work in saturation that is the
region of maximum efficiency in amplifiers, so, for any given
supply voltage, there is an optimum (or maximum) level of
efficiency achieved. With this technique, the RFPA can
operates at its maximum efficiency level for any given power
level. In this topology, the RFPA will works as a load to the
envelope amplifier. The load (RFPA) has the behavioral of a
variable resistor that varies with the supply voltage. The block
diagram is show in the Fig. 5. In the Fig. 6 is show the power
efficiency of the ETPA for different supply voltages.
Fig. 5. Block diagram of Envelope tracking power amplifier [2].
Fig. 6. Power efficiency to the ETPA for different supply voltages [3].
This topology beyond to provide high efficiency, provides
high bandwidth to RFPA. The design of the EA is crucial to
determine the global efficiency of the ET. The global efficiency
of this technique is defined by the envelope amplifier and by
the RFPA as follows:
ET=EA.ET
There are some possibilities to design the EA, the use of a
linear amplifier is essential do not causes distortion but is not
the topology that achieves the best performance possible. So,
the use of hybrid amplifiers is interesting to provides an
improvement in the EA. The concept of the use hybrid
amplifiers is to use a linear amplifier (class A, class B or class
AB) together with a switched amplifier (class C, class D and so
on). Ideally, the maximum efficiency possible in linear
amplifiers are 78.5% (in a class B), and in the switched
amplifier is almost 100%. In the Fig. 7 is show a schematic of
the hybrid ETPA.
Fig. 7. Schematic of the hybrid ETPA.
In this topology, the switched amplifier is responsible to
operate in the high frequency region, and the switched amplifier
will turn on just in the low frequency. In amplifiers, the most
part of the time the RFPA operates near DC, then the switched
amplifier will works in a width range. So, the use of hybrid
amplifiers will provides an improvement in the global
efficiency in the EA.
IV. ENVELOPE ELIMINATION AND RESTORATION
AMPLIFIER
Envelope elimination and restoration (EER) is a logical
alternative to high-level amplitude modulation, which was for
many years the standard method for modulating AM
transmitters [1]. The EER technique is the best alternative to
power amplifiers for single sideband because are more efficient
than regulars Class AB. The envelope elimination and
restoration technique is similar of the ET technique. The EER
consists in to separate the input signal in amplitude and phase
and amplifiers each component separately and attaching both in
the end [1]. Then, the amplification of the phase of the signal
can be doing using a switched amplifier with maximum
efficiency as class D, class E and class F. These class of
amplifiers are better than the class C because achieving higher
efficiency and because can obtain power gain better than the
class C. In the EER the main idea is to use, a linear amplifier to
amplifier the AM signal and use a switched amplifier in the PM
information.
(5) In this technique, the preservation of the information of the
phase is a crucial step to the success in this topology. So, to
preserve the phase information, is used a limiter. The use of
limiter eliminates the possibility of AM-PM distortion in the
nonlinear RFPA. The envelope amplitude will be restored at the
output a voltage supply modulation derived from an envelope
detector. The block diagram is show in the Fig. 8.
 The improvement of the efficiency is due the RFPA works
only in the region of the maximum efficiency, as in the ET
amplifier. The concept is the same as in the ET technique, the
RFPA will work in saturation for every input power, and then
the global efficiency of the RFPA will be improved.
Fig. 8. Block diagram of the EER technique [2].
However, some challenges are introduced by this technique,
the process of amplifying the envelope detected signal will
consume a lot of power [1] and the EER introduces limitations
in the bandwidth of the system. The necessity of the calibration
is a question in the EER but is the technique with the possibility
of the highest power efficiency mentioned in this paper.
V. PREDISTORTION - LINEARIZATION TECHNIQUE
Since the beginning of radio wireless applications, high
data-rate is desirable [3]. Indeed, with the implementations of
new technologies that consume electromagnetic spectrum, the
frequency bands have been becoming scarce. Therefore, it is
crucial efficient modulation schemes to permit more data
transmission. The modulation schemes of the signal works with
non-constant envelope that have to satisfy standards of linearity
in order to do not degraded the information. A Digital Pre
Distortion Technique is widely used with the object to satisfy
the high linearity exigencies in the transmission.
In CMOS process this technique is much useful to cancel
AM-PM distortions introduced by the PA, due CMOS
transistors have high nonlinear behavioral. Other solutions can
be provided by the DPD: reduction of memory effects, cancel
of third harmonic and reduction of adjacent channel power ratio
(ACPR). Indeed, this technique is a lot useful to use together
with Doherty power amplifiers. Due the transistor for larges
swings is turn on and off, the Doherty PA produces
discontinuities at the output that causes a high ACPR [4].
The concept of this technique consists in the use of a
cascade connection between the DPD and PA, which the PA it
is placed after the DPD. Predistortion linearize the PA through
a use of a distorted signal that is put at the input of the PA, in
such way, that this signal cancels the distortion of the amplifier.
The DPD have a transfer characteristic equal to the PA inverse
transfer characteristic as Fig. 9. In the Fig. 10 is show the full
system using the RFPA and the predistortion technique realized
using the DSP and the lookup table.
Fig. 9. Diagram of Predistortion system.
Fig. 10. Full system of PA and DSP using DPD technique [2].
VI. CONCLUSIONS
High data-rate is desirable and the use of schemes of
modulation tightly nonlinear have been used and this beyond to
put the amplifiers to work in the most part of the time in a region
of low efficiency, it causes distortion in the signal transmitted.
Then, the use of enhancement techniques to increase the global
efficiency used together with linearization techniques is a trend
in the telecommunications. The Doherty amplifier was the first
technique proposed with the object to increase the efficiency
and is the most used nowadays. This topology is the easiest to
implement and achieves good performance. The ET and EER
are more recent and similar, both achieves high levels of
efficiency and have good performance to safe power, the EER
has a performance better than the ET but is more difficult to
implement. The use of linearization technique is essential to
allow the RFPA to work in a not so linear region and with that
to achieve better performance. The DPD technique is the most
easiest and fast to implement with low cost.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to acknowledge the financial support
provided by CI Brasil Program and the PGMICRO the facilities
provided.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Cripps, RF Power Amplifiers for Wireless Communications, 2nd
edition. Norwood, MA: Artech House, 2006.
[2] H. S. Ruiz, R. B. Prez, Linear CMOS RF Power Amplifiers. New York,
NY: Springer, 2014.
[3] Gerard Wimpenny, Nujira Ltd. & Member of OpenET Alliance,
Understand and characterize envelope-tracking power amplifiers.
Available: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1279313&.
[4] E. G. Lima, T. R. Cunha, J. C. Pedro, A Physically Meaningful Neural
Network Behavioral Model for Wireless Transmitters Exhibiting PM-
AM/PM-PM Distortions, in IEEE Transactions on microwave theory and
Techniques, vol. 59, no. 12, pp. 3512-3521, December 2011.