Low-Voltage, Low-Noise Direct-Upconverter

Upconverters can be used in the transmitter section of a wireless phone to modulate a

high frequency carrier with the baseband signal containing the information to be transmitted.
To minimize cost and boost performance direct upconversion could be used, avoiding an
intermediate frequency extra block in the signal path between baseband and the output power
amplifier.

The main challenges for a transmit upconverter used in a WCDMA or GSM phone
are high linearity, low noise, high output power, low power consumption and accurate
control over a wide range of output power.

The high linearity is imposed by stringent requirements regarding leakage into

adjacent channels. Out-of-band emissions in cellular bands require very low noise to be
transmitted simultaneously with high output power. As an example, an UMTS time-division
duplex mode phone should not put more than -121dBm/Hz power spectral density of noise
into the DCS receive band, which is only 20MHz away from the transmit band.

Low power consumption and technology scaling limit the bias voltage for these
upconverters to 1.5V. For a WCDMA transmitter, to avoid interference from one user to
another, more than 74dB of gain control is needed, with less than 1dB steps.

To implement gain control, prior-art direct-upconverters use for example a mixer type
differential structure biased with a tail current generator controlled by the baseband signal,
while the differential structure is driven by the high frequency signal derived from a voltage
controlled oscillator, similar to fig. 1 bellow:

Fig. 1
 The switches in the gates of the current generators perform the gain control. These
current generators might be scaled such that the output power is varying linearly in dB.

One drawback of this configuration is the fact that the mosfets in these current
generators need to be biased in the saturation region and this is stealing from the headroom of
the switching core of the modulator.

Another problem is the added noise of mosfet devices needed to implement the
current generators. Also, matching problems associated with these devices create concerns
about the minimum controllable output power, carrier rejection in the output spectrum and
control linearity. These current generators require relatively large area on the chip layout.

Mosfets in the current generators should be relatively large in order to prevent their
1/f noise to be upconverted in the output spectrum. This is a problem since their drain
parasitic capacitance is loading the sources of the switching pair, directly impairing the
linearity and noise performance of the upconverter. Moreover, these parasitic capacitances
are nonlinear. This is another reason why it is desirable to remove them, if possible.

According to the present invention, the mosfets in the current generators in fig. 1
above can be removed. Now the resistors only in the sources of the switching core of the
upconverter determine the currents through the core, and consequently the output power. In
order to precisely control these currents, a negative feedback control loop is built with the
help of an opamp or OTA, as in the fig. 2 bellow:

Fig. 2

Baseband signals, through the opamp, reach the gates of the switching core, and
consequently the sources of the mosfets in the ON state, determining the voltage drops on the
source resistances (and currents through the switching mosfets). The capacitors in the gates
of the mosfets couple the high frequency signal from the VCO (LO signal). The output power
is varied in steps by switching the source resistors. Matching between these resistors could be
very good in integrated circuit technology, depending mostly on their area.

Now the headroom on the mosfets is limited only by the drop on the source resistors.
The lack of extra parasitic capacitances in the switching core considerably improves the
linearity and noise performance of this upconverter.

Another disadvantage of the prior-art schematic in fig. 1 is the fact that normally the
baseband signal is sent to the current generators’ gates through a current-mode type digital-
to-analog (DAC) converter and a replica bias mosfet. This noisy solution can easily be
replaced using the upconverter disclosed above, with a R-2R-based DAC having less noise
and much more linearity due to lack of extra active devices in its schematic. Not to mention
the power saving of this type of DAC and area saving by not using mosfets in the DAC.
Also, the R-2R ladder, having constant output resistance independently of the code
value, can be the resistive part of the anti-aliasing RC-filter used between the DAC and the
upconverter.

The resistors in the gates of the core prevent the LO signal to reach the baseband
opamp.

Claim
- The upconversion method described in fig. 2 (using mosfets or bipolar
transistors) where the switching core is closed in a negative feedback loop
being controlled by the baseband signal, without using current generators for
biasing the core, having accordingly only two devices consuming headroom
between the power supply and ground (besides the load): the switching core
itself and the switched-resistors for establishing the bias currents through the
core (and consequently the output power).
- Similar configurations to this disclosure, where between the Vcc and ground
there are only two devices cascaded on the signal path (besides the output
load). One example could use PMOS transistors instead of NMOS ones in
the switching core, driving the output transformer which is connected to the
ground line, while the switched-resistors are connected between the Vcc line
and the sources of the PMOS transistors.

Note
I didn't apply for a patent in the one year time-frame from the provisional application
for a patent, so this now is public domain.

Raducu Lazarescu,
raduculazarescu@netscape.net