PROJECT OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this project is to develop dramtically improved transmitter amplifiers for application to the wireless communication systems of the 21st century. This will increase the range and lifetime of these systems, as well as lower their cost and enable a range of new internet-based wireless services.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION:
The use of wireless telephone and data networks is becoming an increasingly common way for California citizens to connect to teach other. One of the major reasons that these wireless services are not more widely used is that they remain too expensive and inconvenient for many. The purpose of this project is to try to solve these problems for one of the critical parts of the wireless infrastructure - the amplifier that transmits voice or data from the telephone to the base station. In fact, today, that amplifer wastes a tremendous amount of battery life, raising the cost and lowering the lifetime of the cellular telephone; more than 95% of the battery power in today's cellular telephones is wasted. Our goal with this project is to improve the efficiency of the transmitter in these phones dramatically. At the same time, many California companies produce these telephones and wireless systems for a worldwide market, and the results of this effort could provide them with a substantial advantage in a highly competitive marketplace.
TECHNICAL ABSTRACT:
The implementation of next generation wireless systems is becoming increasingly constrained by the performance of transmitter power amplifiers, due to the wider bandwidths and more sophisticated signal processing being employed by these systems. We propose to develop improved power amplifier design and system concepts for wireless communications base stations and handsets. These new designs will achieve improved linearity and reduced dc power consumption for next generation wireless communications applications. We intend to develop a number of new design concepts, including improved dc-dc converters for dynamic power control, improved Class-E amplifiers for CMOS applications, feedforward and outphasing power amplifier designs. In addition, we will investigate improved modulation techniques that will allow amplifiers to operate in a nearly constant-envelope mode for greater efficiency. The result of this project will be a dramatic improvement in power-amplifier performance for wireless applications.
Affiliated Faculty
CoRe Research Projects