Envelope-Tracking Two-Stage Power Amplifier With Dual-Mode Supply Modulator for LTE Applications

This paper presents an envelope tracking power amplifier (ET PA) using a dual-mode supply modulator for handset application. The supply modulator has a combined structure with a linear amplifier and a switching amplifier. The dual-mode supply modulator operates in high-power mode and low-power mode by providing the supply voltage of the linear amplifier of 5 and 2.5 V, respectively. For 1.74-GHz long-term evolution signal with 10-MHz bandwidth, 6.44-dB peak-to-average power ratio, and 16-quadrature amplitude modulation, the ET PA delivers a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 39.8%, an evolved universal terrestrial radio access adjacent channel leakage ratio (E-UTRA(ACLR)) of -35.7 dBc, and an error vector magnitude (EVM) of 3.81% at an average output power of 27 dBm. The ET PA also delivers a PAE of 22.6% at an average output power of 18 dBm, which is 6.6% higher than that of the conventional ET PA and 13.1% higher than that of the standalone PA. The supply modulator is connected to a drive stage and a power stage of the PA simultaneously for further enhanced efficiency at a power back-off region. The dual-mode two-stage ET PA delivers a PAE of 38.1%, an E-UTRA(ACLR) of -32.9 dBc, and an EVM of 4.74% at an average output power of 27 dBm. The dual-mode two-stage ET PA also delivers a PAE of 26.3% at an average output power of 18 dBm, which is 7.8% higher than that of the conventional two-stage ET PA and 16.7% higher than that of the standalone PA.