Circuits and methods for using in parallel amplification and signal combining are described herein. A circuit uses a digitally controlled multistage cascade combiner, a digital phase and drive signal amplifier controller and a digital combiner controller circuit with N parallel signals with constant amplitudes belonging to an alphabet with M discrete values and discrete phases feeding it. The signals resulting from N power amplifiers (PAs) have also constant amplitudes belonging to an alphabet with N discrete values and discrete phases prior to being fed to the multistage combiner. A digital combiner controller circuit generates digital control information to activate, or deactivate, the outputs of the PAs, where a set of digital control signals generated in digital combiner controller are used to control sets of switches, where the signals can be activated at the combiner's inputs, according to their power and phase values. The digital control information ensures that only in-phase signals are combined in the active combiner stage and any difference among the inputs of the combiners is always minimized. Both digital combiner controller and digital drive signal amplifier controller, share information about the signals not to be fed to the multistage combiner, so that PAs drive signals can also be powered off under these circumstances. In provide high efficiency amplification the signal amplifiers employed before the combining stage may be of switched or current source type.

The present invention, a Digital Power Amplifier (DPA) with filtered output relates to the transmission circuitry of wireless communications systems and more particularly to high frequency power amplifier circuits using digital intensive techniques on cost efficient semiconductor technologies. Today, we experience an ever-increasing need for low cost, low power wireless transmitters in the millimeter wavelength region. Current solutions rely on analog PA circuits. The background art does not contain a solution for bridging the gap between the operation frequencies of the digital circuits on a cost-efficient technology such as CMOS and the millimeter wavelength transmission frequencies demanded in numerous applications. The DPA allowing the direct feeding of digital data to a high frequency amplifying circuit. In this way, design challenging and costly analog processing up-conversion stages are avoided. The DPA comprises a bank of switching amplifying elements, a switch capacitor trap filter taping on the bank of switching amplifying elements for shaping the frequency characteristic of the produced radio frequency (RF) waveform and an adaptive biasing circuit able of dynamically controlling the power consumption within the switching amplifying elements. It can have a wide spectrum of applications where low cost but high efficiency power amplifiers are needed, such as in the Internet of Things (IoT), Wi-Fi and 5G cellular communications.

Circuits and methods for using in parallel amplification and signal combining are described herein. A circuit uses a digitally controlled multistage cascade combiner, a digital phase and drive signal amplifier controller and a digital combiner controller circuit with N parallel signals with constant amplitudes belonging to an alphabet with M discrete values and discrete phases feeding it. The signals resulting from N power amplifiers (PAs) have also constant amplitudes belonging to an alphabet with N discrete values and discrete phases prior to being fed to the multistage combiner. A digital combiner controller circuit generates digital control information to activate, or deactivate, the outputs of the PAs, where a set of digital control signals generated in digital combiner controller are used to control sets of switches, where the signals can be activated at the combiner's inputs, according to their power and phase values. The digital control information ensures that only in-phase signals are combined in the active combiner stage and any difference among the inputs of the combiners is always minimized. Both digital combiner controller and digital drive signal amplifier controller, share information about the signals not to be fed to the multistage combiner, so that PAs drive signals can also be powered off under these circumstances. In provide high efficiency amplification the signal amplifiers employed before the combining stage may be of switched or current source type.

The present invention, a Digital Power Amplifier (DPA) with filtered output relates to the transmission circuitry of wireless communications systems and more particularly to high frequency power amplifier circuits using digital intensive techniques on cost efficient semiconductor technologies. Today, we experience an ever-increasing need for low cost, low power wireless transmitters in the millimeter wavelength region. Current solutions rely on analog PA circuits. The background art does not contain a solution for bridging the gap between the operation frequencies of the digital circuits on a cost-efficient technology such as CMOS and the millimeter wavelength transmission frequencies demanded in numerous applications. The DPA allowing the direct feeding of digital data to a high frequency amplifying circuit. In this way, design challenging and costly analog processing up-conversion stages are avoided. The DPA comprises a bank of switching amplifying elements, a switch capacitor trap filter taping on the bank of switching amplifying elements for shaping the frequency characteristic of the produced radio frequency (RF) waveform and an adaptive biasing circuit able of dynamically controlling the power consumption within the switching amplifying elements. It can have a wide spectrum of applications where low cost but high efficiency power amplifiers are needed, such as in the Internet of Things (IoT), Wi-Fi and 5G cellular communications.

A signal generator is configured to generate a signal with an amplitude sweep, the signal generator having circuitry comprising: a set of control components, each control component of the set being arranged to be switchably activated in parallel in the circuitry such that an amplitude of the signal has an intrinsic dependence on the number of the control components activated; a shift register controllable by a clock line and comprising a number of bits, each bit of the number of bits controlling activation of a respective control component of the set of control components such that the control components are arranged to be activated or de-activated in a pre-determined order by shifting activation or de-activation bits into the shift register, wherein the shifting is paced by the clock line; and a clock signal generator configured to output a clock signal with a time modulation on the clock line.

A high frequency module includes a first amplifier circuit, a second amplifier circuit, a first matching circuit connected to the first amplifier circuit, and a second matching circuit connected to the second amplifier circuit, wherein the first matching circuit and the second matching circuit are arranged adjacent to each another. The first matching circuit may be provided on an output side of the first amplifier circuit.

Disclosed are methods for biasing amplifiers and for manufacturing bias circuits bias for biasing amplifiers. A power amplifier bias circuit can include an emitter follower device and an emitter follower mirror device coupled to form a mirror configuration. The emitter follower device can be configured to provide a bias signal for a power amplifier at an output port. The power amplifier bias circuit can include a reference device configured to mirror an amplifying transistor of an amplifying device of the power amplifier. The emitter follower mirror device can be configured to provide a mirror bias signal to the reference device. A node between the emitter follower device and the emitter follower mirror device can have a voltage of approximately twice a base-emitter voltage (2Vbe) of the amplifying transistor.

The inventive concept relates to a communication device comprising a DPD processor configured to output a plurality of pre-distorted signals by pre-distorting each of a plurality of input signals using an extracted feedback signal, a first signal combiner configured to combine a plurality of feedback signals corresponding to the plurality of pre-distorted signals and output a combined feedback signal, an analog-to-digital converter configured to convert the combined feedback signal into a digital signal and output a digital-converted combined feedback signal and a signal extractor configured to extract the digital-converted combined feedback signal and output the extracted feedback signal.

An RF module includes a switch IC having connection electrodes on a first main face and connection electrodes on a second main face; a mounting substrate which has a first mounting face at the first main face side and a second mounting face at the second main face side and in which the switch IC is mounted; signal lines for a band A, which are formed at the first mounting face side of the mounting substrate; signal lines for a band B, which are formed at the second mounting face side of the mounting substrate; a band A filter; and a band B filter. Among the band A filter and the band B filter, only the band A filter is mounted on the first mounting face and only the band B filter is mounted on the second mounting face.

The inventive concept relates to a communication device comprising a DPD processor configured to output a plurality of pre-distorted signals by pre-distorting each of a plurality of input signals using an extracted feedback signal, a first signal combiner configured to combine a plurality of feedback signals corresponding to the plurality of pre-distorted signals and output a combined feedback signal, an analog-to-digital converter configured to convert the combined feedback signal into a digital signal and output a digital-converted combined feedback signal and a signal extractor configured to extract the digital-converted combined feedback signal and output the extracted feedback signal.