Disclosed herein are amplification systems that are dynamically biased based on a signal indicative of differential envelope of an input radio-frequency (RF) signal being amplified. The amplification systems include a cascode amplifier configured to amplify the RF signal to generate an output RF signal when one of the transistors of the cascode amplifier is biased by a combination of the input RF signal and a biasing signal while the other transistor of the cascode amplifier is biased by a processed differential envelope signal. The cascode amplifier also receives a combination of a processed differential envelope signal and a supply voltage to generate the output RF signal. The biasing signal can improve or enhance the linearity of amplification systems.

A device to drive a plurality of power switches in a power converter with an input voltage port having an input voltage includes a drive resonant tank, a switch network, a control block configured to control the turn-on and turn-off of drive switches, and an output port. The drive resonant tank has a resonant inductor, and a resonant capacitor which includes an input capacitance of a power switch. The switch network has a plurality of drive switches, which are controlled such that the drive resonant tank goes through a resonant state and a pseudo clamp state consecutively during a switching period. A gate drive voltage of a power switch fluctuates slightly during the pseudo clamp state. The output port has two terminals coupled to a gate and a source of a power switch respectively.

Embodiments described herein relate to an envelope tracking system that uses a single-bit digital signal to encode an analog envelope tracking control signal, or envelope tracking signal for brevity. In certain embodiments, the envelope tracking system can estimate or measure the amplitude of the baseband signal. The envelope tracking system can further estimate the amplitude of the envelope of the RF signal. The system can convert the amplitude of the envelope signal to a single-bit digital signal, typically at a higher, oversample rate. The single-bit digital signal can be transmitted in, for example, a low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) format, from a transceiver to an envelope tracker. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC or A/D) can convert the single-bit digital signal back to an analog envelope signal. Moreover, a driver can increase the power of the A/D output envelope signal to produce an envelope-tracking supply voltage for a power amplifier.

An apparatus for detecting difference in operating characteristics of a main circuit by using a replica circuit is presented. In one exemplary case, a sensed difference in operating characteristics of the two circuits is used to drive a tuning control loop to minimize the sensed difference. In another exemplary case, several replica circuits of the main circuit are used, where each is isolated from one or more operating variables that affect the operating characteristic of the main circuit. Each replica circuit can be used for sensing a different operating characteristic, or, two replica circuits can be combined to sense a same operating characteristic.

Embodiments of the disclosure relate to a multi-mode power management system supporting fifth-generation new radio (5G-NR). The multi-mode power management system includes first tracker circuitry and second tracker circuitry each capable of supplying an envelope tracking (ET) modulated or an average power tracking (APT) modulated voltage. In examples discussed herein, the first tracker circuitry and the second tracker circuitry have been configured to support third-generation (3G) and fourth-generation (4G) power amplifier circuits in various 3G/4G operation modes. The multi-mode power management system is adapted to further support a 5G-NR power amplifier circuit(s) in various 5G-NR operation modes based on the existing first tracker circuitry and/or the existing second tracker circuitry. In this regard, the 5G-NR power amplifier circuit(s) can be incorporated into the existing multi-mode power management system with minimum hardware changes, thus enabling 5G-NR support without significantly increasing component count, cost, and footprint of the multi-mode power management system.

An envelope tracking (ET) current bias circuit includes a rectifying circuit, a phase compensation circuit, and a voltage/current conversion circuit. The rectifying circuit is configured to detect an envelope voltage from a radio frequency (RF) signal. The phase compensation circuit is configured to compensate for a phase of the envelope voltage in which the phase thereof is delayed in the rectifying circuit to output a phase compensated enveloped voltage. The voltage/current conversion circuit is configured to convert the phase compensated envelope voltage into an ET bias current.

A fully integrated power amplifier (PA) employing a transformer combiner with enhanced back-off efficiency includes a first PA to amplify a first radio frequency (RF) signal and a second PA to amplify a second RF signal. A first variable capacitor is coupled between differential output nodes of the first PA. A second variable capacitor is coupled between differential output nodes of the second PA. The differential outputs of the first PA and the second PA are coupled via respective first and second transformers to a load. Capacitance values associated with the first and second variable capacitors are dynamically adjustable based on an amplitude of the RF signal to achieve a desired power efficiency at an output power level.

In the present invention, an analog input signal (X.sub.(n)) is processed by a Peak to Average Ratio Reduction (PARR) block to diminish the difference between peak amplitudes and average amplitudes of the analog input signal (X(n)). After, a distorted signal (h(n)) having low peak to average amplitude ratio, generated at the PARR block output, is processed by a delta sigma modulation (DSM) block converts the distorted signal (h(n)) into a digitally modulated distorted signal (h_dsm.sub.(n)) with high signal to noise ratio (SNR). Afterwards, the digitally modulated distorted signal (h_dsm.sub.(n)) is corrected and amplified by a Class-D RF power amplifier fed by a feeding signal (env.sub.(n)) generated from a digital correction signal (z_dsm.sub.(n)). As a result, a digitally modulated signal (y(n)) with high signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the analog input signal (X.sub.(n)) is generated at the output of the Class-D RF power amplifier.

Bias circuits and methods for silicon-based amplifier architectures that are tolerant of supply and bias voltage variations, bias current variations, and transistor stack height, and compensate for poor output resistance characteristics. Embodiments include power amplifiers and low-noise amplifiers that utilize a cascode reference circuit to bias the final stages of a cascode amplifier under the control of a closed loop bias control circuit. The closed loop bias control circuit ensures that the current in the cascode reference circuit is approximately equal to a selected multiple of a known current value by adjusting the gate bias voltage to the final stage of the cascode amplifier. The final current through the cascode amplifier is a multiple of the current in the cascode reference circuit, based on a device scaling factor representing the relative sizes of the transistor devices in the cascode amplifier and in the cascode reference circuit.

An envelope tracking scheme can be used, such as to modulate a supply node of a power amplifier circuit to improve efficiency. For example, a magnitude or amplitude envelope of a signal to be modulated can be scaled and used to drive a node, such as a drain, of the power amplifier circuit. An envelope tracking signal can be generated such as having a bandwidth that is compressed as compared to a full-bandwidth envelope signal. A peak-value look ahead technique can be used, for example, so that amplitude compression or clipping of the transmit signal is suppressed when the bandwidth-compressed envelope tracking signal is used to modulate a supply node of the power amplifier used to amplify the transmit signal.