A Comparative DC Power Budget Analysis of RF Linearization Architectures for 1 Watt Power Amplifier for Low Power Wireless Base Station

In this paper, we present the Direct Current (DC) power budget study for a linearized 1watt Radio Frequency (RF) low Power Amplifier (PA). The study is based on the radio frequency design considerations for a modern low power wireless Base Station (BS) targeted for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) applications. The system and circuit level RF analysis is carried out using simulation methodology. This methodology uses the datasheet specifications of the Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) RF frontend components. In our analysis, three linearization topologies are compared, namely: Analog Pre- Distortion (APD), Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) and PA back-off mode. For single antenna RF front end topology, the total power consumption is at least 30.83 watt for the PA back-off mode, 26.18 watt with the usage of DPD topology and 20.94 watt with APD topology. The APD topology considers a COTS component based design approach using a weakly non-linear type of PA device. In comparison to the PA back-off mode of operation, the DPD and the APD linearization schemes provide an estimated relative power saving of about 15% and 32% respectively.