This paper describes a single-chip RF transce-iver LSI for 2.4-GHz-band Bluetooth applications. This chip uses a 0.5 µm BiCMOS process, which provides 23 GHz fT. The LSI consists of almost all the required RF and IF building blocks--a power amplifier (PA), a low noise amplifier (LNA), an image rejection mixer (IRM), channel-selection filters, a limiter, a received signal strength indicator (RSSI), a frequency discriminator, a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), and a phase-locked loop (PLL) synthesizer. The transceiver consumes 34.4 mA in TX mode (PA, VCO, PLL) and 44.0 mA in RX mode (LNA, IRM, channel-selection filters, limiter, RSSI, frequency discriminator, VCO, PLL). Direct-up conversion with a frequency doubler is used for the TX architecture. In order to avoid the VCO pulling, we used a 1.2 GHz VCO with the frequency doubler. In the receiver section, a low-IF single conversion RX architecture is employed for the integration of the channel-selection filters. The transceiver has a proposed linear frequency discriminator with a wide input range. The wide input-frequency range discriminator is required to realize the lower IF RX architecture because of the higher ratio of frequency deviation to the center IF frequency. The discriminator is the delay line type, and consists of a mixer and a delay line circuit with a locked loop. The delay line connects to one input terminal of the mixer. By using the delay locked at one fourth of the period of the IF frequency, a quadrature phase shift IF signal is applied to the mixer input terminal. For the frequency discriminator, the DC output voltage changes in proportion to the input frequency and a wide input range is achieved. This RF transceiver sufficiently satisfies all the target specifications for short-range Bluetooth applications. By using this chip, a -80 dBm sensitivity is obtained for the 10-3 BER, and the transceiver can deliver an output power of over 0.0 dBm.

This paper presents novel phase-continuous frequency hopping (FH) control for a direct frequency synthesizer (DFS) using a quadrature mixer driven by two direct digital synthesizers (DDSs). To achieve wideband FH in both of the lower and the upper sidebands of a local frequency in a quadrature mixer, the proposed DFS decreases or increases the phase of DDS output signals corresponding to frequency offset from a local frequency of the quadrature mixer. To realize phase decrement, the proposed method adds a complement number in a phase accumulator of a DDS, while a conventional DDS does not use phase decrement but uses a switchable combiner. In addition, as the phase accumulator output changes continuously by summing phase increment, the proposed method always assures phase continuity of a DFS output signal, which ends up suppressing sidelobe level of frequency hopped signals. The calculation and measurement results indicate that a sidelobe of a signal spectrum using the proposed phase continuous method is approximately 10 dB better than that using a conventional phase discontinuous method.

This paper presents a digital predistorter with a wideband memory effect compensator for a Doherty power amplifier (PA). A simple memory-predistortion model, which consists of a look-up-table (LUT) and an adaptive filter equalizing memory effects, and a new memory effect estimation algorithm using a direct-learning architecture are proposed. The proposed estimation algorithm has an advantage that a transfer function of a feedback circuit does not affect the learning process. The predistorter is implemented in a field programmable gate array (FPGA) and a digital signal processor (DSP). The transmitter has achieved distortion level of -50.8 dBr at signal bandwidth away from the carrier, and PA module efficiency of 24% with output power of 43 dBm at 2595 MHz under a 20 MHz-bandwidth orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal using laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) FETs.

This paper proposes a design method of a Doherty amplifier, which can determine the most efficient backed-off point of the amplifier by adjusting a load modulation parameter. The parameter is defined through the design of output transmission line of a carrier and a peak amplifier using a virtual open stub technique. This paper describes the design results using the technique to optimize efficiency of a Doherty amplifier for an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal, and parameter adjustment for a linearized Doherty amplifier using an adaptive digital predistortion (ADPD). Applying this method, the developed 250 W ADPD Doherty amplifier has achieved drain efficiency of 43.4% and intermodulation (IM) distortion of -48.3 dBc with output power of 44.1 dBm (10.1 dB output backed-off) at 563 MHz using an OFDM signal for integrated services digital broadcasting-terrestrial (ISDB-T).

This paper shows a new pulse swallow programmable frequency divider with the division step size of 0.5. To realize the division step size of 0.5 by a conventional pulse swallow method, we propose a parallel dual modulus prescaler with the division ratio of P and P + 0.5. It consists of simple circuit elements and has an advantage over the conventional dual modulus prescaler with the division step size of 0.5 in high frequency operation. The proposed parallel dual modulus prescaler with the division ratio 8 and 8.5 is implemented in the 0.13-µm CMOS technology. The proposed architecture achieves 7 times higher frequency operation than the conventional one theoretically. It is verified the functions over 5 GHz.

This paper presents a novel spur suppression technique using a three-phase holding pulse for a direct digital synthesizer (DDS) with a two-phase holding digital-to-analog converter (2PH-DAC). A 2PH-DAC, which uses a reverse-sign step-function as a sampling pulse waveform instead of a commonly-used gate function of zeroth-order hold, enhances the first image of aliasing, which is of higher frequency than the fundamental. Therefore, the first image can be treated as a desired signal, while the fundamental and the second image are spurs for a DDS with a 2PH-DAC (2PH-DDS). The main problem of the 2PH-DDS is close spurs in the case that signal frequency is near Nyquist frequency or sampling frequency. This paper proposes a novel spur suppression technique for a 2PH-DDS. A configuration of a 2PH-DDS is first explained, and spectral properties are analyzed. Based on the analysis, a technique using a three-phase holding pulse to cancel spurs is proposed. Evaluated spur levels of the proposed synthesizer are from -51 to -34 dBc, and are improved by 25 dB or more by the proposed technique.