All Digital Polar Transmitter Design for Software Defined Radio -- Architecture and Low Power Circuit Implementations Liang Rong Doctoral Thesis in Electronic and Computer Systems Stockholm, Sweden, 2012 Liang Rong All Digital Polar Transmitter Design for Software Defined Radio -- Architecture and Low Power Circuit Implementations Doctoral dissertation submitted to Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Technology (Dr. Tech). ISBN 978-91-7501-614-6 TRITA-ICT/ES AVH 12:10 ISSN 1653-6363 ISRN KTH/ICT/ECS/AVH-12/10-SE Copyright © Liang Rong, December 2012 Contact: [email protected] Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden School of Information and Communication Technology Department of Electronic Systems Forum 120, Isafjordsgatan 39 SE-164 40 Kista, Stockholm Sweden Abstract The evolving wireless communication technology is aiming high data rate, high mobility, long distance and at the meantime, co-exist with various different standards. This developing trend requires a highly linear transceiver system and it causes the problem of low efficiency due to the large crest factor of signals. On the other hand, with process scaling, digital blocks are occupying more functions and chip area than before, to fully utilize the digital process low power advantage and save design cost, hardware reuse is preferable. The concept of Software Defined Radio (SDR) is raised to make the system more adaptable to multiple communication standards with minimal hardware resources. In this doctoral dissertation work, the software defined radio architecture especially the all-digital polar transmitter architecture is explored. System level comparison on different transmitter topologies is carried out in the first place. Direct conversion, out-phasing and polar transmitter topologies are compared. Based on the system level evaluation, a Lowpass Sigma Delta Modulation (LPSDM) digital polar transmitter is designed under 90nm CMOS process and packaged in QFN32. 19.3% peak efficiency and 11.4dBm output power is measured under single 1.0V supply. The constellation measurement achieved 5.08% for 3pi/8PSK modulation and 7.01% for QAM16 modulation output. The measurement on the packaged transmitter AM/AM and AM/PM also demonstrated the linearity and power efficiency performance under low voltage environment. This verified the possibility for a fully SDR solution in the future. As a specific application and genuine creation, the UHF RFID standard is mapped into digital polar transmitter architecture. System Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Sweden, Ph.D. Thesis II ABSTRACT level simulation is performed and transient signal parameters are extracted. To prove the SDR possibility, the system is fully designed by VHDL language and downloaded into FPGA hardware with high speed serial port. The measured results confirm the possibility of the digital polar transmitter architecture potential in SDR system realization. Based on the design and verification of two different systems, the methodology for digital implementation of linear transmitter system is developed and the skill to carry out optimization and measurement is also possessed. In conclusion, the academic publication and verification proved the feasibility of digital polar transmitter application in linear system and point out the direction for a fully SDR realization. Key Words: Switching Power Amplifier, All Digital Polar Transmitter, Lowpass Sigma Delta Modulation, Software Defined Radio, RFID, H-Bridge Architecture, Resonating, Filter Matching Network. Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Sweden, Ph.D. Thesis Acknowledgement The memory of the past 5 years is like a very precious crystal in my life, with the meditation on the master and doctoral study in KTH Stockholm Sweden since 2004, I truly and gratefully thank all the people who I met here. I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Li-Rong Zheng for offering me the chance to improve and supervising me during the doctoral period. And great thanks to Dr. Fredrik Jonsson for constructive and helpful tutor work in my academic research and revising publications. Thanks to Dr. Qiang Chen for helping me on devices and amplifier knowledge. Also I would like to thank Prof. Axel Jantsch, Prof. Håkan Olsson, Owe SE Thessén, Dr. Ingo Sander, Dr. Johnny Öberg, Prof. Ana Rusu, Prof. Urban Westergren and Dr. Zhonghai Lu, Jian Liu, Dr. Xinzhong Duo for the knowledge taught. I would like to express my gratitude here to the colleagues in Catena Wireless Electronics AB. Thank Mats Carlsson, Dr. Charlotta Hedenäs; Jan Rapp for the supervising works. Thank Paul Stephansson and Jan Dahlin for discussions about circuits, David Westberg on the Matlab using, Axel Törnlöv and Joel on PLL circuit, Thomas Flink on the measurements skills, Hossein Fazlollahi for the laughter, Magnus Bohman and Meer Setu for the filter circuit and SDM, Ernst Habekotté on the circuit simulations and Ms. Emma for layout skills. Thank you for the knowledge they share with me. I would also like to thank Ms. Susanne Almquist in Electrum for helping me with the COB and Mr. Magnus Alsered for bonding and packaging knowledge. Special thanks to Bertil Olsson for helping me soldering and teaching me PCB knowledge so many times. IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would also like to thank my colleagues Shaoteng Liu, Dr. Huiming She, Dr. Botao Shao, Zhi Zhang, Peng Wang, Jia Mao, Qin Zhou, Li Xie, Jue Shen, Ning Ma, Jian Chen, Geng Yang, Zuo Zhou, Chuanying Zhai, Jie Gao, Qiansu Wan, Dr. Majid Baghaei Nejad, David Samiento Mendoza, Ana López Cabezas, Yi Feng and Dr. Zhiyin Liu, Pei Liu, Chaochao Feng, Wenmin Hu, Shuo Li for helpful and constructive discussions on my work. And thanks to Dr. Muhammad Ali Shami for code synthesize and tool using. I am also very grateful to Mr. Reza Bagger for the support and discussion. During the doctoral study I also got good KTH-IT support and I would also like to say thank you to IT guys Peter Magnusson, Stephan Kring, Richard Anderson, Robin Gehrke and Mr. Mo for the hard work they do. You are doing good job for us. I would also like to thank our secretaries Agneta, Hans, William, Marriane, Lars and Ms. Alina Munteanu and Ms. May-Britt Eklund- Larsson for daily supporting. You make my life easier here. I am also very thankful to my friends, Mr. Wei Cui, and Mr. Yi Yao, Dr. Zhiqiang Zheng, Leisi Hanyue for so many supports all the time. And I would also like to thank my Swedish teacher, Ylva Nilsson in Tyresö Kommun and Ebba Hamelberg for the patient teaching work. Last but not least, I would like thank my dear parents, Mr. Jinbao Rong and Mrs. Chuanxiang Kan, for taking the pain and let me live up to your expectation, everything I do, I do it for the family. Liang Rong Oct. 3rd. 2012. Stockholm, Sweden Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Sweden, Ph.D. Thesis For the Dream of Brothers. For the Glory of Family. Veni, Vidi, Vici. Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Sweden, Ph.D. Thesis List of Abbreviations A AAS Adaptive Antenna System ACK Acknowledgement ADC Analog-to-Digital Converter ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscribers Line AES Advanced encryption standard AGC Automatic Gain Control AMC Adaptive modulation and coding ARQ Automatic Repeat Request ASIC Application-Specific Integrated Circuit B BER Bit Error Rate BF Beam Forming BPSK Binary Phase Shift Keying BR Bandwidth Request BS Base Station BTC Block Turbo Code BW Bandwidth BWA Broadband Wireless Access BWAA Bandwidth Allocation / Access C CC Convolutional Code CDMA Code Division Multiple Access CMOS Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor CP Cyclic Prefix CPE Customer Premises Equipment CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check CTC Convolutional Turbo Codes D DAC Digital-to-Analog Converter DL Downlink dBi Decibels of gain relative to the zero dB gain of a free- space isotropic radiator dBm Decibels relative to one milliwatt DLFP Downlink Frame Prefix DPSK Differential Phase Shift Keying Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Sweden, Ph.D. Thesis VIII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS DSP Digital Signal Processor E EAP Extensible Authentication Protocol EC Encryption Control EVM Error Vector Magnitude F FBSS Fast Base Station Switching FDD Frequency Division Duplex or Duplexing FDM Frequency Division Multiplexing FEC Forward Error Correction FFT Fast Fourier Transform FHDC Frequency Hopping Diversity Coding FPGA Field-Programmable Gate Array G GPS Global Positioning System GS Guard Symbol GSM H H-ARQ Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request H-FDD Half-duplex Frequency Division Duplex HO Handover HUMAN High-speed Unlicensed Metropolitan Area Network I I in-phase ICI Inter Carrier Interference IFFT Inverse Fast Fourier Transform IP Internet Protocol IR Incremental Redundancy / Infrared ISI Inter Symbol Interference ITU International Telecommunications Union L LAN Local Area Network LFSR Linear Feedback Shift Register LINC Linear amplifier with Non-linear Components LNA Low Noise Amplifier LOS Line-of-Sight Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Sweden, Ph.D. Thesis LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS IX LSB Least Significant Bit M MAC Medium Access Control layer MAN Metropolitan Area Network MC Multi Carrier MCS Modulation Coding Scheme MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output MS Mobile Station MSB Most Significant Bit MSH Mesh N NLOS Non-Line-of-Sight O OAM Orbital Angular Momentum OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access P PA Power Amplifier PAK Primary Authorization Key PAPR Peak to Average Power Ratio PAR Peak to Average Ratio PHY Physical Layer PRBS Pseudo-Random