Anritsu HFE0903 RaabPart3

34 High Frequency Electronics
High Frequency Design
RF POWER AMPLIFIERS
RF and Microwave Power Amplifier and Transmitter Technologies —
Part 3
T
he building blocks used in transmit-
ters are not only power amplifiers, but a variety of other circuit elements including oscil­lators, mixers, low-level amplifiers, filters, match­ing networks, combiners, and circulators. The
arrangement of building blocks is known as the architecture of a transmitter. The classic transmitter architecture is based upon linear PAs and power combiners. More recently, transmitters are being based upon a variety of different architectures including stage bypassing, Kahn, envelope tracking, outphas­ing, and Doherty. Many of these are actually fairly old techniques that have been recently made practical by the capabilities of DSP.
7a. LINEAR ARCHITECTURE
The conventional architecture for a linear microwave transmitter consists of a baseband or IF modulator, an up-converter, and a power­amplifier chain (Figure 20). The amplifier chain consists of cascaded gain stages with power gains in the range of 6 to 20 dB. If the transmitter must produce an amplitude-mod­ulated or multi-carrier signal, each stage must have adequate linearity. This generally requires class-A amplifiers with substantial power back-off for all of the driver stages. The final amplifier (output stage) is always the most costly in terms of device size and current consumption, hence it is desirable to operate the output stage in class B. In applications requiring very high linearity, it is necessary to use class A in spite of the lower efficiency.
The outputs of a driver stage must be matched to the input of the following stage much as the final amplifier is matched to the load. The matching tolerance for maintaining power level can be significantly lower than that for gain [60], hence the 1-dB load-pull contours are more tightly packed for power than for gain.
To obtain even modest bandwidths (e.g., above 5 percent), the use of quadrature bal­anced stages is advisable (Figure 21). The main benefit of the quadrature balanced con­figuration is that reflections from the transis­tors are cancelled by the action of the input and output couplers. An individual device can therefore be deliberately mismatched (e.g., to achieve a power match on the output), yet the quadrature-combined system appears to be well-matched. This configuration also acts as an effective power combiner, so that a given power rating can be achieved using a pair of devices having half of the required power per­formance. For moderate-bandwidth designs, the lower-power stages are typically designed using a simple single-ended cascade, which in some cases is available as an RFIC. Designs with bandwidths approaching an octave or
Transmitter architectures is
the subject of this install-
ment of our continuing
series on power amplifiers,
with an emphasis on
designs that can meet
today’s linearity and high
efficiency requirements
Figure 20 · A conventional transmitter.
RF/
Baseband
Exciter
Mixer
LO
RX
3-stage PA
From September 2003 High Frequency Electronics
Copyright © 2003 Summit Technical Media, LLC
36 High Frequency Electronics
High Frequency Design
RF POWER AMPLIFIERS
more require the use of quadrature­balanced stages throughout the entire chain.
Simple linear-amplifier chains of this kind have high linearity but only modest efficiency. Single-carrier applications usually operate the final amplifier to about the 1-dB compres­sion point on amplitude modulation peaks. A thus-designed chain in which only the output stage exhibits compression can still deliver an ACPR in the range of about –25 dBc with 50-percent efficiency at PEP.
Two practical problems are fre­quently encountered in the design of linear PA chains: stability and low gain. Linear, class-A chains are actu­ally more susceptible to oscillation due to their high gain, and single­path chains are especially prone to unstable behavior. Instability can be subdivided into the two distinct cate­gories: Low-frequency oscillation and in-band instability. In-band instabili­ty is avoided by designing the indi­vidual gain stages to meet the crite­ria for unconditional stability; i.e., the Rollet k factor [61] must be greater than unity for both in-band and out-of-band frequencies. Meeting this criterion usually requires sacri­ficing some gain through the use of absorptive elements. Alternatively, the use of quadrature balanced stages provides much greater isola­tion between individual stages, and the broadband response of the quadrature couplers can eliminate the need to design the transistor
stage itself with k>1. This is another reason for using quadrature coupled stages in the output of the chain.
Large RF power devices typically have very high transconductance, and this can produce low-frequency insta­bility unless great care is taken to terminate both the input and output at low frequencies with impedances for unconditional stability. Because of large separation from the RF band, this is usually a simple matter requir­ing a few resistors and capacitors.
At X band and higher, the power gain of devices in the 10 W and above category can drop well below 10 dB. To maintain linearity, it may be nec­essary to use a similarly size device as a driver. Such an architecture clearly has a major negative impact upon the cost and efficiency of the whole chain. In the more extreme cases, it may be advantageous to con­sider a multi-way power combiner, where 4, 8, or an even greater num­ber of smaller devices are combined. Such an approach also has other advantages, such as soft failure, bet­ter thermal management, and phase linearity. However, it typically con­sumes more board space.
7b. POWER COMBINERS
The need frequently arises to combine the outputs of several indi­vidual PAs to achieve the desired transmitter output. Whether to use a number of smaller PAs vs. a single larger PA is one of the most basic decisions in selection of an architec-
ture [60]. Even when larger devices are available, smaller devices often offer higher gain, a lower matching Q factor (wider bandwidth), better phase linearity, and lower cost. Heat dissipation is more readily accom­plished with a number of small devices, and a soft-failure mode becomes possible. On the other hand, the increase in parts count, assembly time, and physical size are significant disadvantages to the use of multiple, smaller devices.
Direct connection of multiple PAs is generally impractical as the PAs interact, allowing changes in output from one to cause the load impedance seen by the other to vary. A constant load impedance, hence isolation of one PA from the other, is provided by a hybrid combiner. A hybrid combiner causes the difference between the two PA outputs to be routed to and dissipated in a balancing or “dump” resistor. In the event that one PA fails, the other continues to operate normally, with the transmitter out­put reduced to one fourth of nominal.
The most common power combin­er is the quadrature-hybrid combiner. A 90° phase shift is introduced at input of one PA and also at the out­put of the other. The benefits of quadrature combining include con­stant input impedance in spite of variations of input impedances of the individual PAs, cancellation of odd harmonics, and cancellation of back­ward-IMD (IMD resulting from a sig­nal entering the output port). In addition, the effect of load impedance upon the system output is greatly reduced (e.g., to 1.2 dB for a 3:1 SWR). Maintenance of a nearly con­stant output occurs because the load impedance presented to one PA decreases when that presented to the other PA increases. As a result, how­ever, device ratings increase and effi­ciency decreases roughly in propor­tion to the SWR [65]. Because quadrature combiners are inherently two-terminal devices, they are used in a corporate combining architecture
Figure 21 · Amplifier stages with quadrature combiners.
90º
38 High Frequency Electronics
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RF POWER AMPLIFIERS
(Figure 21). Unfortunately, the physical construction of such couplers poses some problems in a PC-board envi­ronment. The very tight coupling between the two quar­ter-wave transmission lines requires either very fine gaps or a three-dimensional structure. This problem is circum­vented by the use of a miniature co-axial cable having a pair of precisely twisted wires to from the coupling sec­tion or ready-made, low-cost surface mount 3-dB couplers.
The Wilkinson or in-phase power combiner [62] is often more easily fabricated than a quadrature combiner. In the two-input form (as in each section in Figure 22), the outputs from two quarter-wavelength lines summed into load R
0
produce an apparent load impedance of 2R0, which is transformed through the lines into at the load impedances R
PA
seen by the individual PAs. The differ­ence between the two PA outputs is dissipated in a resis­tor connected across the two inputs. Proper choice of the balancing resistor (2R
PA
) produces a hybrid combiner with good isolation between the two PAs. The Wilkinson concept can be extended to include more than two inputs [63].
Greater bandwidth can be obtained by increasing the number of transforming sections in each signal path. A single-section combiner can have a useful bandwidth of about 20 percent, whereas a two-section version can have a bandwidth close to an octave. In practice, escalating cir­cuit losses generally preclude the use of more than two sections.
All power-combining techniques all suffer from circuit losses as well as mismatch losses. The losses in a simple two-way combiner are typically about 0.5 dB or 10 per­cent. For a four-way corporate structure, the intercon­nects typically result in higher losses. Simple open microstrip lines are too lossy for use in combining struc­tures. One technique that offers a good compromise among cost, produceability, and performance, uses sus­pended stripline. The conductors are etched onto double­sided PC board, interconnected by vias, and then sus-
pended in a machined cavity. Structures of this kind allow high-power 8-way combiners with octave bandwidths and of 0.5 dB.
A wide variety of other approaches to power-combin­ing circuits are possible [62, 64]. Microwave power can also be combined during radiation from multiple anten­nas through “quasi-optical” techniques [66].
7c. STAGE SWITCHING AND BYPASSING
The power amplifier in a portable transmitter gener­ally operates well below PEP output, as discussed in Section 4 (Part 1). The size of the transistor, quiescent current, and supply voltage are, however, determined by the peak output of the PA. Consequently, a PA with a lower peak output produces low-amplitude signals more efficiently than does a PA with a larger peak output, as illustrated in Figure 23 for class-B PAs with PEP effi­ciencies of 60 percent. Stage-bypassing and gate-switch­ing techniques [67, 68] reduce power consumption and increase efficiency by switching between large and small amplifiers according to signal level. This process is analo­gous to selection of supply voltage in a class-G PA, and the average efficiency can be similarly computed [69].
A typical stage-bypassing architecture is shown in Figure 24. For low-power operation, switches SA and SB route the drive signal around the final amplifier.
Figure 22 · Multi-section Wilkinson combining architecture.
Figure 23 · Power consumption by PAs of different sizes.
Figure 24 · Stage-bypassing architecture.
40 High Frequency Electronics
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Simultaneously, switch SDC turns-off DC power to the final amplifier. The reduction in power consumption can improve the average efficiency signif­icantly (e.g., from 2.1 to 9.5 percent in [70]). The control signal is based upon the signal envelope and power level (back-off). Avoiding hysteresis effects and distortion due to switching tran­sients are critical issues in imple­mentation.
A PA with adaptive gate switching is shown in Figure 25. The gate width (hence current and power capability) of the upper FET is typically ten to twenty times that of the lower FET. The gate bias for the high-power FET keeps it turned off unless it is needed to support a high-power output. Consequently, the quiescent drain current is reduced to low levels unless actually needed. The advantages of this technique are the absence of loss in the switches required by stage bypassing, and operation of the low­power FET in a more linear region (vs. varying the gate bias of a single large FET). The disadvantage is that the source and load impedances change as the upper FET is switched on and off.
7d. KAHN TECHNIQUE
The Kahn Envelope Elimination and Restoration (EER) technique (Figure 26) combines a highly effi-
cient but nonlinear RF power amplifi­er (PA) with a highly efficient enve­lope amplifier to implement a high­efficiency linear RF power amplifier. In its classic form [73], a limiter elim­inates the envelope, allowing the con­stant-amplitude phase modulated carrier to be amplified efficiently by class-C, -D, -E, or -F RF PAs. Amplitude modulation of the final RF PA restores the envelope to the phase­modulated carrier creating an ampli­fied replica of the input signal.
EER is based upon the equiva­lence of any narrowband signal to simultaneous amplitude (envelope) and phase modulations. In a modern implementation, both the envelope and the phase-modulated carrier are generated by a DSP. In contrast to linear amplifiers, a Kahn-technique transmitter operates with high effi­ciency over a wide dynamic range and therefore produces a high aver­age efficiency for a wide range of sig­nals and power (back-off) levels. Average efficiencies three to five times those of linear amplifiers have been demonstrated (Figure 27) from HF [74] to L band [75].
Transmitters based upon the Kahn technique generally have excel­lent linearity because linearity depends upon the modulator rather than RF power transistors. The two most important factors affecting the
linearity are the envelope bandwidth and alignment of the envelope and phase modulations. As a rule of thumb, the envelope bandwidth must be at least twice the RF bandwidth and the misalignment must not exceed one tenth of the inverse of the RF bandwidth [76]. In practice, the drive is not hard-limited as in the classical implementation. Drive power is conserved by allowing the drive to follow the envelope except at low levels. The use of a minimum drive level ensures proper operation of the RF PA at low signal levels where the gain is low [77]. At higher microwave frequencies, the RF power devices exhibit softer saturation characteristics and larger amounts of amplitude-to-phase conversion, necessitating the use of predistortion for good linearity [78].
Figure 26 · Kahn-technique transmitter.Figure 25 · Adaptive gate switching.
Figure 27 · Efficiency of Kahn-tec­nique transmitters.
42 High Frequency Electronics
High Frequency Design
RF POWER AMPLIFIERS
Class-S Modulator
A class-S modulator (Figure 28) uses a transistor and diode or a pair of transistors act as a two-pole switch to generate a rectangular waveform with a switching fre­quency several times that of the output signal. The width of pulses is varied in proportion to the instantaneous amplitude of the desired output signal, which is recovered by a low-pass filter. Class S is ideally 100 percent efficient and in practice can have high efficiency over a wide dynamic range. Class-S modulators are typically used as parts of a Kahn-technique transmitter, while class-S amplifiers are becoming popular for the efficient produc­tion of audio power in portable equipment. A class-S mod­ulator can be driven by a digital (on/off) signal supplied directly from a DSP, eliminating the need for intermedi­ate conversion to an analog signal.
Selection of the output filter is a compromise between passing the infinite-bandwidth envelope and rejecting FM-like spurious components that are inherent in the PWM process. Typically, the switching frequency must be six to seven times the RF bandwidth. Modulators with switching frequencies of 500 kHz are readily implement­ed using discrete MOSFETs and off-the-shelf ICs [74], while several MHz can be achieved using MOS ASICs or discrete GaAs devices [75].
Class-G Modulator
A class-G modulator (Figure 29) is a combination of lin­ear series-pass (class-B) amplifiers that operate from dif­ferent supply voltages. Power is conserved by selecting the one with the lowest useable supply voltage [69] so that the voltage drop across the active device is minimized.
Split-Band Modulator
Most of the power in the envelope resides at lower fre­quencies; typically 80 percent is in the DC component. The bandwidth of a class-S modulator can therefore be extended by combining it with a linear amplifier. While there are a number of approaches, the highest efficiency
(typically 90 percent) is achieved by a diplexing combiner. Obtaining a flat frequency response and resistive loads for the two PAs is achieved by splitting the input signals in a DSP that acts as a pair of negative-component filters (Figure 30) [79]. The split-band modulator should make possible Kahn-technique transmitters with RF band­widths of tens or even hundreds of MHz.
7e. ENVELOPE TRACKING
The envelope-tracking architecture (Figure 31) is sim­ilar to that of the Kahn technique. However, the final amplifier operates in a linear mode and the supply volt­age is varied dynamically to conserve power [81, 82]. The RF drive contains both amplitude and phase information, and the burden of providing linear amplification lies entirely on the final RF PA. The role of the variable power supply is only to optimize efficiency.
Typically, the envelope is detected and used to control a DC-DC converter. While both buck (step-down) or boost (step-up) converters are used, the latter is more common as it allows operation of the RF PA from a supply voltage higher than the DC-supply voltage. This configuration is
Figure 28 · Class-S modulator.
Figure 29 · Class-G modulator.
Figure 30 · Split-band modulator.
September 2003 43
also more amenable to the use of npn or n-channel tran­sistors for fast switching. The result is a minimum V
DDRF
corresponding to the DC-supply voltage and tracking of larger envelopes with a fixed “headroom” to ensure linear operation of the RF PA. If the RF PA is operated in class A, its quiescent current can also be varied.
In general, excess power-supply voltage translates to reduced efficiency, rather than output distortion. In prin­ciple, perfect tracking of the envelope by the supply volt­age preserves the peak efficiency of the RF PA for all out­put amplitudes, as in the Kahn technique. In practice, efficiency improvement is obtained over a limited range of output power.
A high switching frequency in the DC-DC converter allows both a high modulation bandwidth and the use of smaller inductors and capacitors. The switching devices in the converter can in fact be implemented using the same same transistor technology used in the RF PA. Converters with switching frequencies of 10 to 20 MHz have recently been implemented using MOS ASICs [80], GaAs HBTs [83, 84] and RF power MOSFETs [85].
Representative results for an envelope-tracking trans­mitter based on a GaAs FET power amplifier are shown in Figure 32. The efficiency is lower at high power than that of the conventional amplifier with constant supply voltage due to the inefficiency of the DC-DC converter. However, the efficiency is much higher over a wide range of output power, with the average efficiency approximately 40 per­cent higher than that of the conventional linear amplifier.
Spurious outputs can be produced by supply-voltage ripple at the switching frequency. The effects of the ripple can be minimized by making the switching frequency suf­ficiently high or by using an appropriate filter. Variation of the RF PA gain with supply voltage can introduce dis­tortion. Such distortion can, however, be countered by pre­distortion techniques [to be covered in Section 8 (Part 4)].
7f. OUTPHASING
Outphasing was invented during the 1930s as a means of obtaining high-quality AM from vacuum tubes with poor linearity [86] and was used through about 1970 in RCA “Ampliphase” AM-broadcast transmitters. In the 1970s, it came into use at microwave frequencies under the name “LINC” (Linear Amplification using Nonlinear Components) [87].
An outphasing transmitter (Figure 33) produces an amplitude-modulated signal by combining the outputs of two PAs driven with signals of different time-varying phases. Basically, the phase modulation causes the instantaneous vector sum of the two PA outputs to follow the desired signal amplitude (Figure 34). The inverse sine of envelope E phase-modulates the driving signals for the two PAs to produce a transmitter output that is proportional to E. In a modern implementation, a DSP and synthesizer produce the inverse-sine modulations of the driving signals.
Hybrid combining (Figure 33) isolates the PAs from the reactive loads inherent in outphasing, allowing them to see resistive loads at all signal levels. However, both PAs deliver full power all of the time. Consequently, the efficiency of a hybrid-coupled outphasing transmitter varies with the output power (Figure 35), resulting in an average efficiency that is inversely proportional to peak­to-average ratio (as for class A). Recovery of the power from the dump port of the hybrid combiner offers some improvement in the efficiency [88].
The phase of the output current is that of the vector sum of the two PA-output voltages. Direct summation of the out-of-phase signals in a nonhybrid combiner inher­ently results in reactive load impedances for the power amplifiers [89]. If the reactances are not partially can­celled as in the Chireix technique, the current drawn from the PAs is proportional to the transmitter-output voltage.
Figure 31 · Envelope-tracking architecture.
Figure 32 · Efficiency of a GaAs FET envelope­tracking transmitter.
High Frequency Design
RF POWER AMPLIFIERS
This results in an efficiency charac­teristic similar to that of a class-B PA.
The Chireix technique [86] uses shunt reactances on the inputs to the combiner (Figure 36) to tune-out the drain reactances at a particular amplitude, which in turn maximizes the efficiency in the vicinity of that amplitude. The efficiency at high and low amplitudes may be degraded. In the classic Chireix implementation, the shunt reactances maximize the efficiency at the level of the unmodu­lated carrier in an AM signal and pro­duce good efficiency over the upper 6 dB of the output range. With judi­cious choice of the shunt suscep­tances, the average efficiency can be maximized for any given signal [89, 90]. For example, a normalized sus­ceptance of 0.11 peaks the instanta­neous efficiency at a somewhat lower amplitude, resulting in an average efficiency of 52.1 percent for an ideal class-B PA and a 10-dB Rayleigh­envelope signal (vs. 28 percent for lin-
ear amplification).
Virtually all microwave outphas­ing systems in use today are of the hybrid-coupled type. Use of the Chireix technique at microwave fre­quencies is difficult because microwave PAs do not behave as ideal voltage sources. Simulations suggest that direct (nonhybrid) combining increases both efficiency and distor­tion [91]. Since outphasing offers a wide bandwidth and the distortion can be mitigated by techniques such as predistortion, directly coupled and Chireix techniques should be fruitful areas for future investigation.
7g. DOHERTY TECHNIQUE
Development of the Doherty tech­nique in 1936 [92] was motivated by the observation that signals with sig­nificant amplitude modulation resulted in low average efficiency. The classical Doherty architecture (Figure 37) combines two PAs of equal capacity through quarter-wave-
length lines or networks. The “carri­er” (main) PA is biased in class B while the “peaking” (auxiliary) PA is biased in class C. Only the carrier PA is active when the signal amplitude is half or less of the PEP amplitude. Both PAs contribute output power when the signal amplitude is larger than half of the PEP amplitude
Operation of the Doherty system can be understood by dividing it into low-power, medium-power (load-mod­ulation), and peak-power regions [96]. The current and voltage rela­tionships are shown in Figure 38 for ideal transistors and lossless match­ing networks. In the low-power region, the instantaneous amplitude of the input signal is insufficient to overcome the class-C (negative) bias of the peaking PA, thus the peaking PA remains cut-off and appears as an open-circuit. With the example load impedances shown in Figure 37, the carrier PA sees a 100 ohm load and operates as an ordinary class-B amplifier. The drain voltage increases linearly with output until reaching supply voltage V
DD
. The instanta­neous efficiency at this point (–6 dB from PEP) is therefore the 78.5 per­cent of the ideal class-B PA.
As the signal amplitude increases into the medium-power region, the carrier PA saturates and the peaking PA becomes active. The additional current I
2
sent to the load by the peaking PA causes the apparent load impedance at V
L
to increase above
Figure 36 · Chireix-outphasing transmitter.Figure 33 · Hybrid-combined outphasing transmitter.
Figure 34 · Signal vectors in out­phasing.
Figure 35 · Efficiency of outphasing transmitters with ideal class-B PAs.
44 High Frequency Electronics
46 High Frequency Electronics
High Frequency Design
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the 25 ohms of the low-power region. Transformation through the quarter­wavelength line results in a decrease in the load presented to the carrier PA. The carrier PA remains in satu­ration and acts as a voltage source. It
operates at peak efficiency, but delivers an in­creasing amount of power. At PEP output, both PAs see 50-ohm loads and each delivers half of the system output power. The PEP efficiency is that of the class-B PAs.
The resulting instantaneous­efficiency curve is shown in Figure
39. The classical power division (α =
0.5) approximately maximizes the average efficiency for full-carrier AM signals, as well as modern single-car­rier digital signals. The use of other power-division ratios allows the lower
efficiency peak to be shifted leftward so that the average efficiency is increased for signals with higher peak-to-average ratios. For example, α = 0.36 results in a 60 percent aver­age efficiency for a Rayleigh-envelope signal with a 10-dB peak-to-average ratio, which is a factor of 2.1 improve­ment over class B. Doherty transmit­ters with unequal power division can be implemented by using different PEP load impedances and different supply voltages in the two PAs [97].
Much recent effort has focused on accommodating non-ideal effects (e.g., nonlinearity, loss, phase shift) into a Doherty architecture [93, 94, 95]. The power consumed by the qui­escent current of the peaking amplifi­er is also a concern. The measured ACPR characteristics of an S-band Doherty transmitter are compared to those of quadrature-combined class­B PAs in Figure 40. The signal is IS­95 forward link with pilot channel, paging channel, and sync-channel. The PAs are based upon 50-W LDMOS transistors. Back-off is var­ied to trade-off linearity against out­put. For the specified ACPR of –45 dBc, the average PAE is nearly twice that of the quadrature-combined PAs.
In a modern implementation, DSP can be used to control the drive and bias to the two PAs, for precise con­trol and higher linearity. It is also possible to use three or more stages to keep the instantaneous efficiency relatively high over a larger dynamic range [96, 98]. For ideal class-B PAs, the average efficiency of a three-stage Doherty can be as high as 70 percent for a Rayleigh-envelope signal with 10-dB peak-to-average ratio.
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Figure 37 · Doherty transmitter.
Figure 38 · Ideal voltage and current relationships in Doherty transmitter.
Figure 39 Instantaneous efficiency of the Doherty system with ideal class-B PAs.
Figure 40 · Measured ACPR perfor­mance of an S-band Doherty trans­mitter.
48 High Frequency Electronics
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RF POWER AMPLIFIERS
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Author Information
The authors of this series of arti­cles are: Frederick H. Raab (lead author), Green Mountain Radio Research, e-mail: f.raab@ieee.org; Peter Asbeck, University of California at San Diego; Steve Cripps, Hywave Associates; Peter B. Kenington, Andrew Corporation; Zoya B. Popovic, University of Colorado; Nick Pothecary, Consultant; John F. Sevic, California Eastern Laboratories; and Nathan O. Sokal, Design Automation. Readers desiring more information should contact the lead author.
Acronyms Used in Part 3
EER Envelope Elimination and
Restoration
AM Amplitude Modulation
LINC Linear Amplification with
Nonlinear Components
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