Process, Voltage and Temperature Compensation Technique for Cascode Modulated PAs

This paper presents a process, voltage and temperature (PVT) compensation method for a cascode modulated polar power amplifier (PA). It is shown that it is possible to create a baseband replica circuit of the PA that has the same AM-AM nonlinearity as the PA itself. The replica circuit, that represents a transistor level model (empirical model) of the cascode modulated PA, is utilized in a PA analog predistorter. The analog predistorter linearizes and compensates for PVT variation of the cascode modulated PA. The empirical model is placed in the negative feedback of an operational transconductance amplifier. The predistorted varying envelope signal is applied to the cascode gate of the PA. It is shown that the proposed PVT compensation technique significantly reduces the PVT spread of the PA linearity indicators and improves the PA linearity. Simulations were performed in a 0.13 μm CMOS process.