A linear supply modulator with high dynamic range for polar transmitters in LTE application

Abstract

The paper presents an implementation of a linear supply modulator with high dynamic range and bandwidth in polar transmitter for LTE applications. The design starts with the analysis of specification requirements for LTE standard signals. Based upon this, a linear supply modulator with power amplifier is designed and implemented in 130 nm technology, achieving a dynamic range of 23 dB and an average efficiency of 18.0 % at 6 dB back-off power. The performance is also verified by using 5 MHz LTE modulated signals without any predistortion techniques. Simulation results show an average EVM of 3.0 % and more than 10 dB margin to spectrum emission mask.