An improved method of providing high burst power to audio amplifiers from limited power sources, using parallel power paths to increase system efficiency without need for a power path controller, thus utilizing a simplified circuit operation and maximizing average power available for both the amplifier and supporting circuitry.

Various examples are directed to systems and methods for operating a plurality of power amplifiers. A predistortion circuit may pre-distort an input signal according to a predistortion configuration to generate a pre-distorted signal for the plurality of power amplifiers. An adaption circuit may receive a first feedback signal from a first power amplifier of the plurality of power amplifiers and generate predistortion correlation data describing a correlation between parameters of a model describing the plurality of power amplifiers. The adaption circuit may receive a first feedback signal from a second power amplifier of the plurality of power amplifiers and update the predistortion correlation data to generate updated predistortion correlation data using the first feedback signal from the second power amplifier. The adaption circuit may also generate the predistortion configuration using the updated predistortion correlation data.

An example apparatus includes a first amplifier stage having a first stage input, a first input pair having a first input and a first output coupled to the first stage input, a second input pair having a second input and a second output, current steering circuitry having a third input, a fourth input, a third output, and a fourth output, the third output coupled to the first input and the fourth output coupled to the second input, source follower circuitry having a fifth input and a fifth output, the fifth output coupled to the first input, and a comparator having a sixth output coupled to the fifth input.

Apparatus and methods for an improved-efficiency Doherty amplifier are described. The Doherty amplifier may include a two-stage peaking amplifier that transitions from an “off” state to an “on” state later and more rapidly than a single-stage peaking amplifier used in a conventional Doherty amplifier. The improved Doherty amplifier may operate at higher gain values than a conventional Doherty amplifier, with no appreciable reduction in signal bandwidth.

Disclosed is a transistor of a device that has an asymmetric resistance or an asymmetric capacitive coupling or both. When used in a cascode configuration in an amplifier, low current performance of the amplifier is improved. Asymmetric resistance may be enabled through differentially doping source and drain structures of the transistor and/or through differentially manipulating geometries the source and drain structures. Asymmetric capacitive coupling may be enabled through providing dielectrics and differentially locating the dielectrics above a gate of the transistor. Further, a body of the transistor may be biased.

A scalable periphery tunable matching power amplifier is presented. Varying power levels can be accommodated by selectively activating or deactivating unit cells of which the scalable periphery tunable matching power amplifier is comprised. Tunable matching allows individual unit cells to see a constant output impedance, reducing need for transforming a low impedance up to a system impedance and attendant power loss. The scalable periphery tunable matching power amplifier can also be tuned for different operating conditions such as different frequencies of operation or different modes.

An electronic device may include wireless circuitry with a processor that generates baseband signals, an upconversion circuit that upconverts the baseband signals to radio-frequency signals, a power amplifier, an antenna, and a transmit filter with a frequency dependent filter response coupled between the output of the power amplifier and the antenna. To help mitigate the frequency dependent filter response, the wireless circuitry may further include predistortion circuitry having an amplifier load response estimator that implements a baseband model of the filter response, an amplifier non-linearity estimator that models the non-linear behavior of the amplifier, and a control signal generator for adjusting the power amplifier based on the output of the amplifier load response estimator and the amplifier non-linearity estimator.

Aspects of this disclosure relate to methods of manufacturing bulk acoustic wave components. Such methods include plasma dicing to singulate individual bulk acoustic wave components. A buffer layer can be formed over a substrate of bulk acoustic wave components such that streets are exposed. The bulk acoustic wave components can be plasma diced along the exposed streets to thereby singulate the bulk acoustic wave components.

Described are circuits and techniques to increase the efficiency of radio-frequency (rf) amplifiers including rf power amplifiers (PAs) through “supply modulation” (also referred to as “drain modulation” or “collector modulation”), in which supply voltages provided to rf amplifiers is adjusted dynamically (“modulated”) over time depending upon the rf signal being synthesized. For the largest efficiency improvements, a supply voltage can be adjusted among discrete voltage levels or continuously on a short time scale. The supply voltages (or voltage levels) provided to an rf amplifier may also be adapted to accommodate longer-term changes in desired rf envelope such as associated with adapting transmitter output strength to minimize errors in data transfer, for rf “traffic” variations.

This application relates to an amplifier selectively operable in first or second modes. The first mode is a BTL mode with first and second output drivers (103p, 103n) both active to generate respective driving signals that vary with an input signal. The second mode is an SE mode, where the first output driver (103p) is active to generate a driving signal at and the output of the second driver (103n) is held constant. A controller (201) selectively controls the mode based on an indication of output signal amplitude. In the first mode, a ratio of magnitude of the two driving signals varies with the indication of output signal amplitude, i.e. the magnitudes of the two driving signals may vary so as to be not equal.