Integrated RF Front End with Stacked Transistor Switch

• Main Authors: Cable, James S, Burgener, Mark L
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 26.11.2020
• Subjects: AMPLIFIERS; ANTENNAS, i.e. RADIO AERIALS; BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; BASIC ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY; CONTROL OF AMPLIFICATION; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION; TRANSMISSION; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

A monolithic integrated circuit (IC), and method of manufacturing same, that includes all RF front end or transceiver elements for a portable communication device, including a power amplifier (PA), a matching, coupling and filtering network, and an antenna switch to couple the conditioned PA signal to an antenna. An output signal sensor senses at least a voltage amplitude of the signal switched by the antenna switch, and signals a PA control circuit to limit PA output power in response to excessive values of sensed output. Stacks of multiple FETs in series to operate as a switching device may be used for implementation of the RF front end, and the method and apparatus of such stacks are claimed as subcombinations. An iClass PA architecture is described that dissipatively terminates unwanted harmonics of the PA output signal. A preferred embodiment of the RF transceiver IC includes two distinct PA circuits, two distinct receive signal amplifier circuits, and a four-way antenna switch to selectably couple a single antenna connection to any one of the four circuits.