DIFFERENTIAL RF AMPLIFIER
An RF amplifier including first and second branches coupled in parallel between first and second supply voltage terminals, and a differential pair including first and second transistors each having first and second main current terminals, the second main current terminal of the first transistor being coupled by a first capacitor to the first main current terminal of the second transistor, and the second main current terminal of the second transistor being coupled by a second capacitor to the first main current terminal of the first transistor, wherein the first branch includes a first resistor coupled between the first main current terminal to of the first transistor and the second capacitor, and the second branch includes a second resistor; coupled between the first main current terminal of the second transistor and the first capacitor.
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This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/988,094, filed on Dec. 1, 2010, which application is a U.S. National Stage patent application based on PCT application number PCT/EP2009/054594, filed on Apr. 17, 2009, which application claims the priority benefit of European patent application number 08305109.4, filed on Apr. 18, 2008, which applications are hereby incorporated by reference to the maximum extent allowable by law.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an RF amplifier, and in particular to a differential RF amplifier.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Differential RF amplifiers are devices designed to amplify, buffer at unitary gain or attenuate a differential RF input signal. Due to the nature of RF signals, there are various design considerations. For example, generally such circuits are designed with the aim that a common mode voltage between the differential inputs is attenuated, that linearity is high without high current consumption, that little noise is added to the RF signal and that the area of the device is low to keep the cost of the device reasonable.
In practice, known RF amplifiers generally fail to provide good common mode rejection at the same time as acceptable linearity between the input and the output. There is thus a need in the art for a new RF amplifier circuit that is better adapted to meet these design aims.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONIt is an aim of embodiments of the present invention to at least partially address one or more of the needs in the prior art.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided an RF amplifier comprising first and second branches coupled in parallel between a first supply voltage terminal and a second supply voltage terminal, said branches defining a differential pair arranged to be controlled by a differential input signal comprised of first and second input signals, the differential pair comprising a first transistor in said first branch and a second transistor in said second branch, wherein said first and second transistors each comprise first and second main current terminals, said second main current terminal of said first transistor being coupled by a first capacitor to the first main current terminal of said second transistor, to and said second main current terminal of said second transistor being coupled by a second capacitor to the first main current terminal of said first transistor, said first or second main current terminals of the first and second transistors being coupled to differential output nodes of said RF amplifier, wherein said first branch comprises a first resistor coupled between said first main current terminal of the first transistor and the second capacitor, and said second branch comprises a second resistor coupled between said first main current terminal of said second transistor and the first capacitor.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, the first and second branches comprise first and second current sources respectively, coupled respectively between the first and second transistors and one of the first and second supply voltage terminals.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the first and second current sources are variable current sources controlled by a feedback signal from the differential pair.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the first and second transistors are NPN bipolar transistors.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, the first and second resistors each have a resistance of 30 ohms or more, for example, between 30 and 100 ohms.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the first and second branches each comprise a third resistor coupled to said first supply voltage terminal.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the first resistor is connected between the first main current terminal of the first transistor and a first one of the differential output nodes, and the second resistor is connected between the first main current terminal of the second transistor and a second one of the differential output nodes.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the first resistor is connected between the first main current terminal of the first transistor and the first supply voltage terminal, and the second resistor is connected between the first main current terminal of the second transistor and the first supply voltage terminal, the first nodes of the first and second transistors forming the differential output nodes of the RF amplifier.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the resistance of said first and second resistors is less than or equal to the resistance of said third resistors.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the resistance of the first and second resistors is equal to a2R, the resistance of the third resistors is equal to a1R, the current gain of the first and second transistors is β, and the resistances of the first, second and third resistors are chosen such that a1 is between 20 and 100 percent of βa2.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a mobile device or satellite receiver comprising the above RF amplifier.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided an RF device comprising an input for receiving a differential RF signal; and the above RF amplifier.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system comprising receiving circuitry for receiving a differential RF input signal comprised of first and second RF input signals; an input node coupled to said receiving circuitry; and the above RF amplifier.
The foregoing and other purposes, features, aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, given by way of illustration and not limitation with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
In the circuit of
Branch 205 further comprises a node 210 coupled to the collector terminal of transistor 207, a resistor 212 coupled between node 210 and a supply voltage VDD, a resistor 213 coupled between the emitter terminal of transistor 207 and a node 214, node 214 being coupled to a further supply voltage, in this example a ground voltage, via current source 216.
Branch 206 further comprises a node 218 coupled to the collector terminal of transistor 208, a resistor 220 coupled between node 218 and a supply voltage VDD, a resistor 221 coupled between the emitter terminal of transistor 208 and a node 222, node 222 being coupled to a further supply voltage, in this example a ground voltage, via a current source 224.
Nodes 214 and 222 coupled to resistors 213 and 221 respectively provide differential output nodes of the circuit, outputting RF signals RFoutP and RFoutN respectively. Furthermore, the emitter and collector terminals of transistors 207 and 208 are cross-coupled via capacitors 226 and 228. In particular, node 214 is coupled to node 218 via a capacitor 226, while node 222 is coupled to node 210 via a capacitor 228.
Resistors 213 and 221, for example, each have a resistance of 30 ohms or more, for example, in the range 30 to 100 ohms. Resistors 212 and 220, for example, each have a resistance in the range of 30 to 150 ohms. In one example, resistors 213 and 221 each have resistance values of 40 ohms, while resistors 212 and 220 each have a resistance of 120 ohms.
In operation, the RF amplifier circuit 200 of
Capacitors 226 and 228 prevent DC coupling, and have values, for example, chosen to be low impedance at the operating frequency of the circuit, which is, for example, in the range 0.5 or 1 GHz to 6 GHz. Capacitance values in the range 1 to 100 pF, and, for example, approximately 10 pF, could be used.
Assuming resistors 212, 220 each have resistance values of a1R, resistors 213, 221 each have resistance values of dR, where a1, d and R are constants, the differential output impedance can be expressed as:
Zoutdiff=2R(a1d)/((2a1)+d)
As an example, a combined output load of approximately 75 ohms, the values R=40 and a1=3 and d=1 could, for example, be used.
The gain of RF amplifier 300 can be determined as follows. It is assumed that each transistor 207, 208 is modelled to have a base-emitter current Ibe equal to gmVbe/β and a collector-emitter current gmVbe, where gm is a measure of the conductance of each transistor at a given frequency, β is a measure of the current gain at a given frequency, and Vbe is the voltage between the base and the emitter terminal of each transistor, assuming no parasitic capacitances. Furthermore, as above, the resistors 212, 220 have resistance values of a1R, resistors 213, 221 have resistance values of dR, and the resistance of the output load is o1R, where a1, d, o1 and R are constants. The common mode gain can then be expressed as:
while the differential mode gain can be expressed as:
As an example, assuming, for a given frequency, β is 10 and gm is 100 mS, while R=50 Ohms and d, o1 and a1 all equal 1, the common mode gain can be determined as being equal to −28.6 dB, and the differential mode gain can be determined as being equal to −7 dB. In comparison, in a same circuit without resistors 213 and 221 the common mode gain can be determined as approximately −15 dB, and differential gain as approximately −1.5 dB.
In operation, the circuit operates in a similar fashion to that of
As with the circuit of
Resistors 212 and 220 of
Using the same references as above, and wherein the resistance of resistors 302 and 304 is equal to a2R, and the output load has a resistance of o2R, the common mode gain can be expressed as:
while the differential mode gain can be expressed as:
By way of example, assuming, for a given frequency, β is 10 and gm is 100 mS, while R=50 Ohms and o2=1, a1=0.5 and a2=2, the common mode gain can be determined as being equal to +0.5 dB, and the differential mode gain can be determined as being equal to +0.6 dB. On the other hand, assuming the same values except that a2=1 and a1=4, the common mode gain can be determined as being −20 dB, while the differential mode gain can be determined as being equal to −3.5 dB. Thus it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that there is a trade off between the differential mode and common mode gains.
For example, in the circuit of
According to some embodiments, the emitters of transistors 402 and 406 could be connected together, allowing a higher gain in the linearizing feed-back loop, and thus improved linearity. Furthermore, some variations would be possible for generating a voltage at node 410 for regulating the DC current in each branch.
An advantage of the structure of
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the circuitry 402 to 418 for providing the variable current source could be added in alternative embodiments to the amplifier configuration 300 of
The attenuator and amplifier combination of
Device 600 is for example a mobile telephone, satellite receiver, games console, navigation aid, laptop computer, TV tuner or other device arranged to receive a differential RF signal.
An advantage of the embodiments of the RF differential amplifier described herein is that by cross-coupling with a capacitor the terminals of a differential pair of the amplifier, with resistors coupled to the terminals of the differential pair, high common mode rejection at the same time as high linearity between the input and the output can be achieved. In particular, in embodiments described herein, for example when driving and matching an output impedance of 75 Ohms differential with −5 dB gain, IIP3 linearity with −10 dBm at 2.15 GHz can be as high as between 25 and 35 dBm, while common mode rejection at 6.2 GHz can be between −15 and −25 dB.
A further advantage of some embodiments described herein is that NPN transistors can be used as both the transistors of the cross-coupled differential pair, and such devices are generally faster than PNP transistors. In particular, in the described embodiments a push-pull structure is used, wherein the push and pull are achieved by two matched NPN transistors, rather than an NPN and a PNP.
It should be noted that the resistors described herein are passive devices, rather than active devices.
While a number of particular embodiments have been described, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications can be applied.
For example, while in the described embodiments the transistors are described as being to bipolar transistors such as bipolar junction transistors (BJT), in alternative embodiments other types of transistors could be used, and in particular one or more of the transistors could be replaced by MOS (metal oxide semiconductor) transistors. It will also be apparent to those skilled in the art that while all of the transistors illustrated in the various embodiments are NPN bipolar transistors, it would be possible to replace one or more of these by PNP bipolar transistors.
Furthermore, it will be apparent that it would be possible to invert the circuits of
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that while output node have been shown in the various figures on one side of the differential pair, in alternative embodiments they could equally be provided at nodes on the other side of the differential pair. For example, in
Such alterations, modifications, and improvements are intended to be part of this disclosure, and are intended to be within the spirit and the scope of the present invention.
Accordingly, the foregoing description is by way of example only and is not intended to be limiting. The present invention is limited only as defined in the following claims and the equivalents thereto.
Claims
1. An RF amplifier comprising:
- first and second branches coupled in parallel between a first supply voltage terminal and a second supply voltage terminal, said branches defining a differential pair arranged to be controlled by a differential input signal comprised of first and second input signals, the differential pair comprising a first transistor in said first branch and a second transistor in said second branch, wherein said first and second transistors each comprise first and second main current terminals, said second main current terminal of said first transistor being coupled by a first capacitor to the first main current terminal of said second transistor, and said second main current terminal of said second transistor being coupled by a second capacitor to the first main current terminal of said first transistor, said first or second main current terminals of the first and second transistors being coupled to differential output nodes of said RF amplifier, wherein said first branch comprises a first resistor coupled between said first main current terminal of the first transistor and the second capacitor, and said second branch comprises a second resistor coupled between said first main current terminal of said second transistor and the first capacitor.
2. The RF amplifier of claim 1, wherein said first and second branches comprise first and second current sources respectively, coupled respectively between said first and second transistors and one of said first and second supply voltage terminals.
3. The RF amplifier of claim 2, wherein said first and second current sources are variable current sources controlled by a feedback signal from said differential pair.
4. The RF amplifier of claim 1, wherein said first and second transistors are NPN bipolar transistors.
5. The RF amplifier of claim 1, wherein the first and second resistors each have a resistance of 30 ohms or more.
6. The RF amplifier of claim 5, wherein the first and second resistors each have a resistance of between 30 and 100 ohms.
7. The RF amplifier of claim 1, wherein the first and second branches each comprise a third resistor coupled to said first supply voltage terminal.
8. The RF amplifier of claim 7, wherein the first resistor is connected between the first main current terminal of the first transistor and a first one of the differential output nodes, and the second resistor is connected between the first main current terminal of the second transistor and a second one of the differential output nodes.
9. The RF amplifier of claim 8, wherein the first resistor is connected between the first main current terminal of the first transistor and the first supply voltage terminal, and the second resistor is connected between the first main current terminal of the second transistor and the first supply voltage terminal, the first nodes of the first and second transistors forming the differential output nodes of the RF amplifier.
10. The RF amplifier of claim 9, wherein the resistance of said first and second resistors is less than or equal to the resistance of said third resistors.
11. The RF amplifier of claim 9, wherein the resistance of the first and second resistors equal to a2R, the resistance of the third resistors is equal to a1R, the current gain of the first and second transistors is β, and the resistances of the first, second and third resistors are chosen such that a1 is between 20 and 100 percent of βa2.
12. A mobile device comprising the RF amplifier of claim 1.
13. A satellite receiver comprising the RF amplifier of any claim 1.
14. An RF device comprising:
- an input for receiving a differential RF signal;
- first and second branches coupled in parallel between a first supply voltage terminal and a second supply voltage terminal, said branches defining a differential pair arranged to be controlled by a differential input signal comprised of first and second input signals, the differential pair comprising a first transistor in said first branch and a second transistor in said second branch, wherein said first and second transistors each comprise first and second main current terminals, said second main current terminal of said first transistor being coupled by a first capacitor to the first main current terminal of said second transistor, and said second main current terminal of said second transistor being coupled by a second capacitor to the first main current terminal of said first transistor, said first or second main current terminals of the first and second transistors being coupled to differential output nodes of said RF amplifier, wherein said first branch comprises a first resistor coupled between said first main current terminal of the first transistor and the second capacitor, and said second branch comprises a second resistor coupled between said first main current terminal of said second transistor and the first capacitor.
15. A system comprising:
- receiving circuitry for receiving a differential RF input signal comprised of first and second RF input signals;
- an input node coupled to said receiving circuitry; and
- an RF amplifier comprising first and second branches coupled in parallel between a first supply voltage terminal and a second supply voltage terminal, said branches defining a differential pair arranged to be controlled by a differential input signal comprised of first and second input signals, the differential pair comprising a first transistor in said first branch and a second transistor in said second branch, wherein said first and second transistors each comprise first and second main current terminals, said second main current terminal of said first transistor being coupled by a first capacitor to the first main current terminal of said second transistor, and said second main current terminal of said second transistor being coupled by a second capacitor to the first main current terminal of said first transistor, said first or second main current terminals of the first and second transistors being coupled to differential output nodes of said RF amplifier, wherein said first branch comprises a first resistor coupled between said first main current terminal of the first transistor and the second capacitor, and said second branch comprises a second resistor coupled between said first main current terminal of said second transistor and the first capacitor.
Type: Application
Filed: Sep 6, 2012
Publication Date: Mar 7, 2013
Applicant: STMicroelectronics (Grenoble) SAS (Grenoble)
Inventors: Olivier Touzard (Grenoble), Fabien Sordet (Grenoble)
Application Number: 13/605,096
International Classification: H03F 3/45 (20060101);