Apple Inc.

Nicholas W Lum

Ronald William Dimpflmaier

William Jean Noellert

Louie J Sanguinetti

Ryan Joseph Goedken

Xueting Liu

Jesse Yu

Daniel Kong

Michael J Stallman

Bradley David Scoles

Systems and method to improve performance of a radio frequency system while operating in compliance with wireless transmission regulations are provided. One embodiment describes a radio frequency system including an antenna that wirelessly transmits an analog electrical signal at a transmission frequency and receives a first network signaling value from a wireless network. The radio frequency system further includes a controller that determines operational constraints on the radio frequency system based on a region of operation; determines a second network signaling value based on the operational constraints, in which the second network signaling value overrides the first network signaling value; determines operational parameters based on the second network signaling value; and instructs the radio frequency system to implement the operational parameters to facilitate the radio frequency system operating in compliance with the operational constraints.

Radio frequency systems and methods for overriding network signaling values

An electronic device has wireless communications circuitry that includes transmitters and receivers. Antenna structures may be coupled to the transmitters and receivers to support radio-frequency signal transmission and radio-frequency signal reception operations. Switching circuitry such may be used to support multiple communications bands of interest. One or more low band receivers may be associated with the first switch and one or more high band receivers may be associated with the second switch. The switches can be configured in real time to switch a desired communications band into use. A diplexer may be used to simultaneously pass low bands to the first receiver and high bands to the second receiver. In this way, a data stream in the low band may be simultaneously received with a data stream in the high band.

Wireless circuitry for simultaneously receiving radio-frequency transmissions in different frequency bands

A wireless electronic device may include antennas formed at different locations on the device. The wireless electronic device may include transceivers that are used to wirelessly communicate in different frequency bands by transmitting and receiving radio-frequency signals in the frequency bands. The transceivers may include Wi-Fi&#xae; transceivers and cellular transceivers such as Long Term Evolution transceivers. The wireless electronic device may include antenna switching circuitry interposed between the transceivers and the antennas. The wireless electronic device may include control circuitry that controls the antenna switching circuitry to ensure that radio-frequency transmissions in adjacent frequency bands are routed to different antennas. By routing radio-frequency transmissions in adjacent frequency bands to different antennas, self-interference between communications in the adjacent frequency bands may be reduced. Self-interference may also be reduced by performing time division multiplexing to isolate radio-frequency signals that are transmitted in adjacent frequency bands.

Wireless electronic device with antenna switching circuitry

An electronic device may include an antenna, a transceiver, and a low noise amplifier module that amplifies receive signals from the antenna to the transceiver circuitry in a first configuration and passes transmit signals from the transceiver to the antenna in a second configuration. The low noise amplifier module may include a first switching circuit coupled to the antenna, a second switching circuit coupled to the transceiver, at least one low noise amplifier coupled between the first and second switching circuits, and a transmit bypass path coupled between the first and second switching circuits. The transceiver may be located in a first electronic device region, whereas the low noise amplifier module and the antenna may be located in a second region. The low noise amplifier module may help compensate for signal loss between the first and second regions and allow for transmit signals to pass to the antenna.

Electronic device with low noise amplifier module

An electronic device may be located in a geographical cell that is served by a base station. The electronic device may communicate with the base station on a frequency band. The frequency band may be subject to adjacent band emissions requirements to help prevent interference with wireless devices that are operating in adjacent frequency bands. The adjacent band emission requirements may vary based on the frequency band used to communicate with the base station, the geographical cell, and/or the presence of public safety radios. To satisfy the adjacent band emissions requirements while minimizing power consumption, the electronic device may receive cell information from the base station and adjust power amplifier linearity based on the received information.

Radio-frequency power amplifier circuitry with linearity optimization capabilities

Electronic devices with wireless communications capabilities are provided. The electronic device may include storage and processing circuitry, power amplifier circuitry, power supply circuitry, etc. The storage and processing circuitry may direct the power amplifier circuitry to operate using a desired power mode, in allocated resource blocks within a particular frequency channel, and at a given output power level. The power supply circuitry may bias the power amplifier circuitry with a power supply voltage. The electronic device may be subject to in-band emissions requirements and adjacent channel leakage requirements that restrict the power levels produced by the device on frequencies that are not allocated to the device. The electronic device may optimize the power amplifier supply voltage based on allocated resource blocks by minimizing the supply voltage to reduce power consumption while ensuring that emissions requirements are satisfied.

Radio-frequency power amplifier circuitry with power supply voltage optimization capabilities

An electronic device may include antenna structures. Wireless transmitter circuitry such as cellular telephone transmitter circuitry and wireless local area network circuitry may transmit signals using the antenna structures. A wireless receiver may receive signals from the antenna structures through an adjustable-linearity amplifier. The wireless receiver may operate in a receive band such as a satellite navigation system receive band. During operation of the electronic device, control circuitry in the device may analyze the frequencies and powers of the transmitted signals to determine whether there is a potential for interference for the receive band to be generated in the adjustable-linearity amplifier. In response to determining that there is a potential for interference, the control circuitry may increase the linearity of the adjustable-linearity amplifier.

Electronic device with dynamic amplifier linearity control

An electronic device has wireless communications circuitry that includes transmitters and receivers. Antenna structures may be coupled to the transmitters and receivers to support radio-frequency signal transmission and radio-frequency signal reception operations. Switching circuitry such as first and second radio-frequency switches may be used to support multiple communications bands of interest. A low band set of transmitters may be associated with the first switch and a high band set of transmitters may be associated with the second switch. The switches can be configured in real time to switch a desired communications band into use. As transmitted signals at frequency f pass through the switches, harmonics at 2f, 3f, and other integral multiples of the transmitted signals may be produced. A diplexer may be interposed between the switching circuitry and the antenna structures that prevents the harmonics from reaching the antenna structures.

Wireless circuitry with reduced harmonic interference

A wireless electronic device may contain multiple antennas. Control circuitry in the wireless electronic device may adjust antenna switching circuitry so that the device repeatedly cycles through use of each of the antennas. In a device with first and second antennas, the device may repeatedly toggle between the first and second antennas. During each toggling cycle time period, the first antenna may transmit for a fraction of the time period and the second antenna may transmit for a fraction of the time period. The wireless device may control the average power emitted by each antenna by adjusting the fractions of time assigned to each antenna. By performing antenna toggling, the average transmit power produced by each antenna may be reduced while maintaining the average transmit power produced by the device at a desired level.

Wireless electronic device with antenna cycling

An electronic device has wireless communications circuitry including a triplexer. The wireless communications circuitry may be used in first and second modes. In the first mode, the device communicates in a first communications band using a transmitter in a first uplink frequency range associated with the first communications band and using a receiver in a first downlink frequency range associated with the first communications band. In the second mode, the device communicates in a second communications band using a transmitter to transmit in a second uplink frequency range associated with the second communications band and using the receiver to receive in a second downlink frequency range associated with the second communications band. Signals in the two downlink frequency ranges may pass through a common bandpass filter in the triplexer. Two additional bandpass filters in the triplexer may be used to respectively handle the two uplink frequency ranges.

Wireless circuits with minimized port counts

An electronic device has wireless communications circuitry that supports communications using multiple radio access technologies. The electronic device may gather information such as data rate values, power consumption values, and other data for a currently active radio access technology and an alternative radio access technology. The electronic device may automatically switch between the currently active radio access technology and the alternative radio access technology based on a value of a data rate efficiency metric. The data rate efficiency metric may represent how efficiently each radio access technology is capable of using power to convey a given amount of data per unit time. The data rate efficiency metric may be evaluated using measured power consumption data, measured data rate values, and operating parameters such as signal strength and transmitted power parameters.

Method for optimizing power consumption in wireless devices using data rate efficiency factor

Portable user devices are provided that communicate wirelessly with base stations. A user device may include a transceiver, a power amplifier, a voltage supply, and a global positioning system (GPS) unit. The device may transmit signals at a certain transmit power to a neighboring base station. The device may log the time spent transmitting at each power level. Each data point may be tagged with the current location of the device. The logs of each device may be aggregated by a power optimization server. The power optimization server may calculate optimum power settings for each region and for each type of device. A region may be any desirable size ranging from the size of a single cell to an entire continent. Device users may download updated optimum settings. A device may automatically detect and select the optimum transmit power setting during operation depending on its current location.

Methods for geographic optimization of cellular telephone transmit power settings

Electronic devices are provided that contain wireless communications circuitry. The wireless communications circuitry may have antenna diversity circuitry that allows an optimum antenna in an antenna structure to be switched into use during device operations. The antenna structure may be shared between multiple radio-frequency transceivers in a radio-frequency transceiver circuit. The radio-frequency transceiver circuit may be coupled to the antenna structure using switching and filtering circuitry. The filtering circuitry may include a diplexer that divides radio-frequency signals into a divided signal path based on frequency. The filtering circuitry may also include bandpass filters that are interposed in each branch of the divided signal path. Switching circuitry in the switching and filtering circuitry may be used to selectively configure the wireless communications circuitry in transmit and receive modes using multiple communications bands.

Electronic device with shared multiband antenna and antenna diversity circuitry

Electronic devices are provided that contain wireless communications circuitry. The wireless communications circuitry may have antenna diversity circuitry that allows an optimum antenna or optimum antennas in an antenna structure to be switched into use during device operations. The antenna structure may be shared between multiple radio-frequency transceivers in a radio-frequency transceiver circuit. The radio-frequency transceiver circuit may be coupled to the antenna structure using switching and filtering circuitry. The filtering circuitry may include one or more diplexers that divide radio-frequency signals into divided signal paths based on frequency. The filtering circuitry may also include low pass, high pass, and bandpass filters that are interposed in the divided signal paths. Switching circuitry in the switching and filtering circuitry may be used to selectively configure the wireless communications circuitry in transmit and receive modes using multiple communications bands.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Nicholas W Lum