The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 31, 2017
Filed:
Mar. 01, 2010
Wenjun Su, San Diego, CA (US);
Aristotele Hadjichristos, San Diego, CA (US);
Gurkanwal S. Sahota, San Diego, CA (US);
Marco Cassia, San Diego, CA (US);
Wenjun Su, San Diego, CA (US);
Aristotele Hadjichristos, San Diego, CA (US);
Gurkanwal S. Sahota, San Diego, CA (US);
Marco Cassia, San Diego, CA (US);
QUALCOMM Incorporated, San Diego, CA (US);
Abstract
Techniques for protecting a power amplifier (PA) are described. In an exemplary design, an apparatus includes (i) a PA module to amplify an input RF signal and provide an output RF signal and (ii) a protection circuit to control a transmitter gain to protect the PA module against high peak voltage. In an exemplary design, the protection circuit includes a set of comparators to quantize an analog input signal and provide digital comparator output signals used to adjust the transmitter gain. In another exemplary design, the protection circuit reduces and increases the transmitter gain with hysteresis. In yet another exemplary design, the protection circuit has faster response to rising amplitude than falling amplitude of the output RF signal. The hysteresis and/or the different rise and fall responses may allow the protection circuit to avoid toggling the transmitter gain under severe load mismatch and to handle time-varying envelope due to amplitude modulation.