A Highly Reconfigurable RF-DPLL Phase Modulator for Polar Transmitters in Cellular RFICs

A multirate fractional-N RF digital phase-locked loop (DPLL) phase modulator implementation for polar transmitter supporting cellular communication standards up to 4G LTE-A is demonstrated. The RF-DPLL integrates LC-tank-based digital-controlled oscillator (DCO) cores with \Sigma - \Delta -noise shaping and fractional sample rate conversion to account for a broad range of frequency bands and spectral emission requirements. A two-point modulation with different sampling rates and signal scaling is applied to optimize the system for operation in narrow-band and wide-band phase modulation. DCO digital predistortion and DCO gain estimation in combination with open-loop gain auto adjustment and delay calibration are implemented to achieve sufficiently low-in-band distortion. Measurement results of the RF-DPLL system as part of a polar transmitter implemented in 28-nm CMOS are shown, fulfilling 3GPP specifications for 4G, LTE-A uplink and legacy cellular communication standards like 3G, UMTS/HSPA+ and 2G, GSM/EDGE.