Apple Inc.

Timo W Gossmann

Filipe Tabarani

Antonio Passamani

Adrien F Vargas

Guillaume Gourlat

Syed Ahmed Aamir

The current disclosure is related to a column and line digital-to-analog converter (DAC) with a hybrid coupler for generating quadrature analog signals. The DAC may include an array of unit power amplifiers (cells). A first portion of the cells of the array may be coupled to a first column decoder to receive in-phase components of digital signals and a second portion of the cells may be coupled to a second column decoder to receive quadrature components of the digital signals. The first portion of the cells of the array may generate in-phase components of analog signals and the second portion of the cells of the array may generate quadrature components of the analog signals. A hybrid coupler of the DAC may receive the in-phase and quadrature components of the analog signals with a similar phase, delay the quadrature components by a phase delay (e.g., 90 degrees), and output the resulting analog signals.

Digital-to-analog converter with hybrid coupler

The present disclosure relates to power management for digital-to-analog converters (DACs). As electronic devices and the components therein become increasingly smaller to satisfy the desire for more compact/portable devices, the operating voltage may be reduced to reduce the likelihood of shorts and/or voltage/current bleeds. To maintain comparable power output with the reduced operating voltage, the current may increase proportionally to the decrease in voltage. Consequently, in scaled devices and applications, high-current low-voltage regulators may be beneficial. As such, a low-dropout regulator (LDO) including one or more operational amplifiers and multiple pass devices may be implemented between a power supply and the DAC to regulate the power supply to the DAC. Moreover, the LDO may include one or more feedback loops to maintain a desired voltage regulation of the pass devices.

Split pass device applications for DAC supply systems

A power detector for measuring the radio frequency (RF) power of RF signals generated by a transmitter or a power amplifier of a transmitter is connected between two diodes of electrostatic discharge (ESD) circuitry that is connected to a signal pathway utilized to transmit the RF signals.

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Neubiberg, Germany

Timo W Gossmann