A FPGA based digital predistorter for RF power amplifiers with memory effects

Abstract

This paper presents a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based platform for prototyping digital predistortion (DPD) linearizers, and a scalable DPD architecture is proposed and implemented. This architecture eases the process of meeting transmission linearity requirements, depending of the degree of impairments added by the transmitter chain, and enables a quick migration between different DPD schemes. Details on the internal DPD organization, reconfiguration abilities, as well as experimental results showing DPD linearization of a 10 W LDMOS RF power amplifier are provided, giving an insight on actual development scenarios of DPD systems accounting for memory effects.