Reduced-complexity Digital Predistortion in Flexible Radio Spectrum Access

Wireless communications is nowadays seen as one of the main foundations of technological advancements in, e.g., healthcare, education, agriculture, transportation, computing, personal communications, media, and entertainment. This requires major technological developments and advances at different levels of the wireless communication systems and networks. In particular, it is required to utilize the currently available frequency spectrum in a more and more efficient way, while also adopting new spectral bands. Moreover, it is required that cheaper and smaller electronic components are used to build future wireless communication systems to facilitate increasingly cost-effective solutions. Meanwhile, energy efficiency becomes extremely important in wide scale deployments of the networks both from a running cost point of view, and from an environmental impact point of view. This is the big picture, or the so called ‘bird’s eye view’ of the challenges that are yet to be met in this very interesting and fast developing field of science.The power amplifier (PA) is the most power-hungry component in most RF transmitters. Consequently, its energy efficiency significantly contributes to the overall energy efficiency of the transmitter, and in fact the whole wireless network. Unfortunately, energy efficiency enhancement implies operating the PA closer to its saturation region, which typically results in severe nonlinear distortion that can deteriorate the signal quality and cause interference to neighboring users, both of which negatively impact the system spectral efficiency. Moreover, in flexible spectrum access scenarios, which are essential for improving the spectral efficiency, particular in the form of non-contiguous radio spectrum access, the nonlinear distortion due to the PA becomes even more severe and can significantly impact the overall network performance. For example, in noncontiguous carrier aggregation (CA) in LTE-Advanced, it has been demonstrated that in addition to the classical in-band distortion and regrowth around the main carriers, harmful spurious emission components are generated which can easily violate the spurious emission limits even in the case of user equipment (UE) transmitters.Technological advances in the digital electronics domain have enabled us to approach this problem from a digital signal processing point of view in the form of widely-adopted and researched digital predistortion (DPD) technology. However, when the signal bandwidth gets larger, and flexible or non-contiguous spectrum access is introduced, the complexity of the DPD increases and the power consumed in the digital domain by the DPD itself becomes higher and higher, to the extent that it might be close to, or even surpass, the energy savings achieved from using a more efficient PA. The problem becomes even more challenging at the UE side which has relatively limited computational capabilities and lower transmit power. This dilemma can be resolved by developing novel reduced-complexity DPD solutions in such flexible spectrum access and/or wide bandwidth scenarios while not sacrificing the DPD performance, which is the main topic area that this thesis work contributes to.The first contribution of this thesis is the development of a spur-injection based sub-band DPD structure for spurious emission mitigation in noncontiguous transmission scenarios. A novel and effective learning algorithm is also introduced, for the proposed sub-band DPD, based on the decorrelation principle. Mathematical models of the unwanted emissions are formulated based on realistic PA models with memory, followed by developing an efficient DPD structure for mitigating these emissions with reducedcomplexity in both the DPD main processing and learning paths while providing excellent spurious emission suppression. In the special case when the spurious emissions overlap with the own RX band in frequency division duplexing (FDD) transceivers, a novel subband DPD solution is also developed that uses the main RX for DPD learning without requiring any additional observation RX, thus further reducing the DPD complexity.The second contribution is the development of a novel reduced-complexity concurrent DPD, with a single-feedback receiver path, for carrier aggregation-like scenarios. The proposed solution is based on a simple and flexible DPD structure with decorrelationbased parameter learning. Practical simulations and RF measurements demonstrate that the proposed concurrent DPD provides excellent linearization performance, in terms of in-band error vector magnitude (EVM) and adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR), when compared to state-of-the-art concurrent DPD solutions, despite its reduced computational complexity in both the DPD main path processing and parameter learning.The third contribution is the development of a new and novel frequency-optimized DPD solution which can tailor its linearization capabilities to any particular regions of the spectrum. Detailed mathematical expressions of the power spectrum at the PA output as a function of the DPD coefficients are formulated. A Newton-Raphson optimization routine is then utilized to optimize the suppression of unwanted emissions at arbitrary pre-specified frequencies at the PA output. From a complexity reduction perspective, this means that for a given linearization performance at a particular frequency range, an optimized and reduced-complexity DPD can be used.Detailed quantitative complexity analysis, of all the proposed DPD solutions, is performed in this thesis. The complexity and linearization performance are also compared to state-of-the-art DPD solutions in the literature to validate and demonstrate the complexity reduction aspect without sacrificing the linearization performance. Moreover, all the DPD solutions developed in this thesis are tested in practical RF environments using real cellular power amplifiers that are commercially used in the latest wireless communication systems, both at the base station side and at the mobile terminal side. These experiments, along with the strong theoretical foundation of the developed DPD solutions prove that they can be commercially used as such to enhance the performance, energy efficiency, and cost effectiveness of next generation wireless transmitters

Bandlimited Digital Predistortion of Wideband RF Power Amplifiers

The increase in the demand for high data rates has led to the deployment of wider bandwidths and complex waveforms in wireless communication systems. Multicarrier waveforms such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) employed in modern systems are very sensitive to the transmitter chain nonidealities due to their high peak-to-average-power-ratio (PAPR) characteristic. They are therefore affected by nonlinear transmitter components particularly the power amplifier (PA). Moreover, to enhance power efficiency, PAs typically operate near saturation region and hence become more nonlinear. Power efficiency is highly desirable especially in battery powered and portable devices as well as in base stations. Hence there is a clear need for efficient linearization algorthms which improve power efficiency while maintaining high spectral efficiency. Digital predistortion (DPD) has been recognized as one of the most effective methods in mitigating PA nonlinear distortions. The method involves the application of inverse PA nonlinear function upstream of the PA such that the overall system output has a linear amplification. The computation of the nonlinearity profile and the inversion of the PA function are particularly difficult and complicated especially when involving wideband radio access waveforms, and therefore memory effects, which are being employed in modern communication systems, such as in Long Term Evolution/Advanced (LTE/LTE-A). In the recent technical literature, different approaches which focus on the linearization of specific frequency bands or sub-bands only have been developed to alleviate this problem, thereby reducing the complexity of DPD. In this thesis, we focus on the development and characterization of a bandlimited DPD solution specifically tailored towards the linearization at and around the main carrier(s) in single carrier deployment or contiguous carrier aggregation of two or more component carriers. In terms of parameter identification, the solution is based on the reduced-complexity closed-loop decorrelation-based parameter learning principle, which is also able to track time-varying changes in the transmitter components adaptively. The proposed bandlimited solution is designed to linearize the inband and out-of-band (OOB) distortions in the immediate vicinity of the main carrier(s) while assuming the distortions more far away in the spectrum are suppressed by transmit or duplex filters. This is implemented using FIR filters to limit the bandwidth expansion during basis functions generation and to restrain the bandwidth of the feedback observation signal, thus reducing the DPD sample rates in both the main path processing and the parameter learning. The performance of the proposed bandlimited DPD solution is evaluated using comprehensive simulations involving memoryless and memory-based PA models, as well as true RF measurements using commercial LTE-A base station and mobile device PAs. The achieved results validate and demonstrate efficient suppression of inband and OOB distortions in real-world application scenarios. Furthermore, the bandlimited DPD consistently outperforms the conventional DPD solutions in the memory-based PA model and practical PA scenarios in suppressing the OOB distortion in the immediate vicinity of the main carrier(s) by approximately 1 - 2 dB. The results provide sufficient grounds for the application of the bandlimited DPD solution in the classical single carrier deployment or in contiguous carrier aggregation of two or more component carriers where conventional DPD solutions would otherwise be highly complex

Analysis and Design of a Transmitter for Wireless Communications in CMOS Technology

The number of wireless devices has grown tremendously over the last decade. Great technology improvements and novel transceiver architectures and circuits have enabled an astonishingly expanding set of radio-frequency applications. CMOS technology played a key role in enabling a large-scale diffusion of wireless devices due to its unique advantages in cost and integration. Novel digital-intensive transceivers have taken full advantage of CMOS technology scaling predicted by Moore's law. Die-shrinking has enabled ubiquitous diffusion of low-cost, small form factor and low power wireless devices. However, Radio Frequency (RF) Power Amplifiers (PA) transceiver functionality is historically implemented in a module which is separated from the CMOS core of the transceiver. The PA is traditionally dictating power and battery life of the transceiver, thus justifying its implementation in a tailored technology. By contrast, a fully integrated CMOS transceiver with no external PA would hugely benefit in terms of reduced area and system complexity. In this work, a fully integrated prototype of a Switched-Capacitor Power Amplifier (SCPA) has been implemented in a 28nm CMOS technology. The SCPA provides the functionalities of a PA and of a Radio-Frequency Digital-to-Analog Converter (RF-DAC) in a monolithic CMOS device. The switching output stage of the SCPA enables this circuital topology to reach high efficiencies and offers excellent power handling capabilities. In this work, the properties of the SCPA are analyzed in an extensive and detailed dissertation. Nowadays Wireless Communications operate in a very crowded spectrum, with strict coexistence requirements, thus demanding a strong linearity to the RF-DAC section of the SCPA. A great part of the work of designing a good SCPA is in fact designing a good RF-DAC. To enhance RF-DAC linearity, a precision of the timing of the elements up to the ps range is required. The use of a single core-supply voltage in the whole circuit including the CMOS inverter of the switching output stage enables the use of minimum size devices, improving accuracy and speed in the timing of the elements. The whole circuit operates therefore on low core-supply voltage. Throughout this work, a detailed analysis carefully describes the electromagnetic structures which maximize power and efficiency of low-voltage SCPAs. Due to layout issues subsequent to limited available voltages, however, there is a practical limitation in the maximum achievable power of low-voltage SCPAs. In this work, a Multi-Port Monolithic Power Combiner (PC) is introduced to overcome this limitation and further enhance total achieved system power. The PC sums the power of a collection of SCPAs to a single output, allowing higher output powers at a high efficiency. Benefits, drawbacks and design of SCPA PCs are discussed in this work. The implemented circuit features the combination of four differential SCPAs through a four-way monolithic PC and is simulated to obtain a maximum drain efficiency of 44% at a peak output power of 29dBm on 1.1V supply voltage. Extensive spectrum analysis offers full evaluation of system performances. After exploring state-of-the-art possibilities offered by an advanced 28nm CMOS technology, this work predicts through rigorous theoretical analysis the expected evolution of SCPA performances with the scaling of CMOS Technologies. The encouraging forecast further emphasizes the importance of SCPA circuits for the future of high-performance Wireless Communications

Linearity Requirements in LTE-Advanced Mobile Transmitter

LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) is an emerging wireless communication system, which builds on the foundation of Long Term Evolution (LTE), adding many unprecedented arrangements in utilization of radio resources. Most notably LTE-A allows allocating non-contiguous resources in frequency domain, which significantly enhances the flexibility of the multiple access scheme. Contiguous and non-contiguous carrier aggregation, both intra- and inter-band, are essential components of LTE-A. However, these features set very high requirements especially for mobile transmitters, which simultaneously should be cheap, small, linear and power efficient. Linearity in particular is an important aspect because non-contiguous allocation is prone to produce severe intermodulation distortion, which will degrade transmit signal quality and cause interference to users operating on adjacent frequency ranges. Because variety of wireless systems have to coexist and interoperate in the scarce spectrum supply, there are stringent requirements for unwanted spectrum emissions. There is an inherent trade-off between linearity and power efficiency. Therefore it is significantly difficult to fulfill regulatory spectrum emission requirements with current transmitter technology without sacrificing battery life when operating near the maximum output power. As a compromise LTE-A allows relaxations to maximum output power requirement according to the used submodulation, number of used resource blocks and possible coexistence situations. In practice the transmitter power amplifier (PA) input power is reduced which linearises the PA response. However, this forces the PA to operate less efficiently. This simultaneously constrains using larger constellations and/or higher coding rates because of degraded link budget. Therefore maximum power reduction (MPR) should be minimized. In this thesis LTE and LTE-A are introduced and the models and effects of transmitter nonlinearity are discussed. Linearity requirements of mobile LTE-A transmitter are evaluated using both simulations and measurements in different transmission scenarios, including LTE and LTE-A releases from 8 to 12. The results of the analysis can be used in development of intelligent radio resource management algorithms, advanced MPR specifications and digital predistortion systems

Flexible Receivers in CMOS for Wireless Communication

Consumers are pushing for higher data rates to support more services that are introduced in mobile applications. As an example, a few years ago video-on-demand was only accessed through landlines, but today wireless devices are frequently used to stream video. To support this, more flexible network solutions have merged in 4G, introducing new technical problems to the mobile terminal. New techniques are thus needed, and this dissertation explores five different ideas for receiver front-ends, that are cost-efficient and flexible both in performance and operating frequency. All ideas have been implemented in chips fabricated in 65 nm CMOS technology and verified by measurements. Paper I explores a voltage-mode receiver front-end where sub-threshold positive feedback transistors are introduced to increase the linearity in combination with a bootstrapped passive mixer. Paper II builds on the idea of 8-phase harmonic rejection, but simplifies it to a 6-phase solution that can reject noise and interferers at the 3rd order harmonic of the local oscillator frequency. This provides a good trade-off between the traditional quadrature mixer and the 8- phase harmonic rejection mixer. Furthermore, a very compact inductor-less low noise amplifier is introduced. Paper III investigates the use of global negative feedback in a receiver front-end, and also introduces an auxiliary path that can cancel noise from the main path. In paper IV, another global feedback based receiver front-end is designed, but with positive feedback instead of negative. By introducing global positive feedback, the resistance of the transistors in a passive mixer-first receiver front-end can be reduced to achieve a lower noise figure, while still maintaining input matching. Finally, paper V introduces a full receiver chain with a single-ended to differential LNA, current-mode downconversion mixers, and a baseband circuity that merges the functionalities of the transimpedance amplifier, channel-select filter, and analog-to-digital converter into one single power-efficient block

Reconfigurable Receiver Front-Ends for Advanced Telecommunication Technologies

The exponential growth of converging technologies, including augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, machine-to-machine and machine-to-human interactions, biomedical and environmental sensory systems, and artificial intelligence, is driving the need for robust infrastructural systems capable of handling vast data volumes between end users and service providers. This demand has prompted a significant evolution in wireless communication, with 5G and subsequent generations requiring exponentially improved spectral and energy efficiency compared to their predecessors. Achieving this entails intricate strategies such as advanced digital modulations, broader channel bandwidths, complex spectrum sharing, and carrier aggregation scenarios. A particularly challenging aspect arises in the form of non-contiguous aggregation of up to six carrier components across the frequency range 1 (FR1). This necessitates receiver front-ends to effectively reject out-of-band (OOB) interferences while maintaining high-performance in-band (IB) operation. Reconfigurability becomes pivotal in such dynamic environments, where frequency resource allocation, signal strength, and interference levels continuously change. Software-defined radios (SDRs) and cognitive radios (CRs) emerge as solutions, with direct RF-sampling receivers offering a suitable architecture in which the frequency translation is entirely performed in digital domain to avoid analog mixing issues. Moreover, direct RF- sampling receivers facilitate spectrum observation, which is crucial to identify free zones, and detect interferences. Acoustic and distributed filters offer impressive dynamic range and sharp roll off characteristics, but their bulkiness and lack of electronic adjustment capabilities limit their practicality. Active filters, on the other hand, present opportunities for integration in advanced CMOS technology, addressing size constraints and providing versatile programmability. However, concerns about power consumption, noise generation, and linearity in active filters require careful consideration.This thesis primarily focuses on the design and implementation of a low-voltage, low-power RFFE tailored for direct sampling receivers in 5G FR1 applications. The RFFE consists of a balun low-noise amplifier (LNA), a Q-enhanced filter, and a programmable gain amplifier (PGA). The balun-LNA employs noise cancellation, current reuse, and gm boosting for wideband gain and input impedance matching. Leveraging FD-SOI technology allows for programmable gain and linearity via body biasing. The LNA's operational state ranges between high-performance and high-tolerance modes, which are apt for sensitivityand blocking tests, respectively. The Q-enhanced filter adopts noise-cancelling, current-reuse, and programmable Gm-cells to realize a fourth-order response using two resonators. The fourth-order filter response is achieved by subtracting the individual response of these resonators. Compared to cascaded and magnetically coupled fourth-order filters, this technique maintains the large dynamic range of second-order resonators. Fabricated in 22-nm FD-SOI technology, the RFFE achieves 1%-40% fractional bandwidth (FBW) adjustability from 1.7 GHz to 6.4 GHz, 4.6 dB noise figure (NF) and an OOB third-order intermodulation intercept point (IIP3) of 22 dBm. Furthermore, concerning the implementation uncertainties and potential variations of temperature and supply voltage, design margins have been considered and a hybrid calibration scheme is introduced. A combination of on-chip and off-chip calibration based on noise response is employed to effectively adjust the quality factors, Gm-cells, and resonance frequencies, ensuring desired bandpass response. To optimize and accelerate the calibration process, a reinforcement learning (RL) agent is used.Anticipating future trends, the concept of the Q-enhanced filter extends to a multiple-mode filter for 6G upper mid-band applications. Covering the frequency range from 8 to 20 GHz, this RFFE can be configured as a fourth-order dual-band filter, two bandpass filters (BPFs) with an OOB notch, or a BPF with an IB notch. In cognitive radios, the filter’s transmission zeros can be positioned with respect to the carrier frequencies of interfering signals to yield over 50 dB blocker rejection