The doctoral dissertations of the former Helsinki University of Technology (TKK) and Aalto University Schools of Technology (CHEM, ELEC, ENG, SCI) published in electronic format are available in the electronic publications archive of Aalto University - Aaltodoc.
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Transmitter Architectures with Digital Modulators, D/A Converters and Switching-Mode Power Amplifiers

Johan Sommarek

Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Science in Technology to be presented with due permission of the Department of Electrical and Communications Engineering for public examination and debate in Auditorium S4 at Helsinki University of Technology (Espoo, Finland) on the 20th of June, 2007, at 12 noon.

Overview in PDF format (ISBN 978-951-22-8809-0)   [604 KB]
Dissertation is also available in print (ISBN 978-951-22-8808-3)

Abstract

This thesis is composed of nine publications and an overview of the research topic, which also summarises the work. The research described in this thesis focuses on research into the digitalisation of wireless communication base station transmitters. In particular it has three foci: digital modulation, D/A conversion and switching-mode power amplification. The main interest in the implementation of these circuits is in CMOS.

The work summarizes the designs of several circuit blocks of a wireless transmitter base station. In the baseband stage, a multicarrier digital modulator that combines multiple modulated signals at different carrier frequencies digitally at baseband, and a multimode digital modulator that can be operated for three different communications standards, are implemented as integrated circuits. The digital modulators include digital power ramping and power level control units for transmission bursts. The upconversion of the baseband signal is implemented using an integrated digital quadrature modulator.

The work presented provides insight into the digital-to-analogue interface in the transmitters. This interface is studied both by implementing an intermediate frequency D/A converter in BiCMOS technology and bandpass Delta-Sigma modulator-based D/A conversion in CMOS technology.

Finally, the last part of the work discusses switching-mode power amplifiers which are experimented with both as discrete and integrated implementations in conjunction with 1-bit Delta-Sigma modulation and pulse-width modulation as input signal generation methods.

This thesis consists of an overview and of the following 9 publications:

  1. J. Vankka, J. Pyykönen, J. Sommarek, M. Honkanen and K. Halonen, A Multicarrier GMSK Modulator with On-Chip D/A Converter for Base Stations, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 37, No. 10, pp. 1226-1234, October 2002. © 2002 IEEE. By permission.
  2. J. Vankka, J. Ketola, J. Sommarek, O. Väänänen, M. Kosunen and K. Halonen, A GSM/EDGE/WCDMA Modulator with On-Chip D/A Converter for Base Stations, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Part II: Analog and Digital Signal Processing, Vol. 49, No. 10, pp. 645-655, Oct. 2002. © 2002 IEEE. By permission.
  3. J. Sommarek, M. Kosunen, J. Vankka and K. Halonen, A 14-bit 110 MHz CMOS D/A Converter, Proceedings of the 21st Norchip Conference, Nov. 10-11, 2003, Riga, Latvia, pp. 104-107. © 2003 IEEE. By permission.
  4. J. Vankka, J. Sommarek, J. Ketola, I. Teikari and K. A. I. Halonen, A Digital Quadrature Modulator with On-Chip D/A Converter, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 38, No. 10, pp. 1635-1642, October 2003. © 2003 IEEE. By permission.
  5. J. Sommarek, J. Vankka, J. Ketola, J. Lindeberg and K. Halonen, Digital Modulator with Bandpass Delta-Sigma Modulator, Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 81-86, April 2005. © 2005 by authors and © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media. By permission.
  6. J. Lindeberg, J. Vankka, J. Sommarek and K. Halonen, A 1.5-V Direct Digital Synthesizer with Tunable Delta-Sigma Modulator in 0.13-µm CMOS, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 40, No. 9, pp. 1978-1982, September 2005. © 2005 IEEE. By permission.
  7. J. Sommarek, A. Virtanen, J. Vankka and K. Halonen, Comparison of Different Class-D Power Amplifier Topologies for 1-bit RF Band-Pass Delta-Sigma D/A Converters, 2004 International Symposium on Signals, Systems, and Electronics, ISSSE 2004, August 10-13, 2004, Linz, Austria. © 2004 by authors.
  8. J. Sommarek, A. Virtanen, J. Vankka and K. Halonen, Comparison of Different Class-D Power Amplifier Topologies for 1-bit Band-Pass Delta-Sigma D/A Converters, Proceedings of the 22nd Norchip Conference, November 8-9, 2004, Oslo, Norway, pp. 115-118. © 2004 IEEE. By permission.
  9. J. Sommarek, V. Saari, J. Lindeberg, J. Vankka and K. Halonen, A 20 MHz BP-PWM and BP-DSM Class-D PA in 0.18 µm CMOS, Proceedings of the 12th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems, December 11-14, 2005, Gammarth, Tunisia. © 2005 IEEE. By permission.

Keywords: digital modulator, current-steering D/A converter, Delta-Sigma modulator, switching-mode power amplifier

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© 2007 Helsinki University of Technology

Last update 2011-05-26