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RF3166
Rev A3 DS061031
7628 Thorndike Road, Greensboro, NC 27409-9421 · For sales or technical
support, contact RFMD at (+1) 336-678-5570 or sales-support@rfmd.com.
Theory of Operation
Overview
The RF3166 is a quad-band GSM850, EGSM900, DCS1800, and PCS1900 power amplifier module that incorporates an indi-
rect closed loop method of power control. This simplifies the phone design by eliminating the need for the complicated control
loop design. The indirect closed loop appears as an open loop to the user and can be driven directly from the DAC output in the
baseband circuit.
Theory of Operation
The indirect closed loop is essentially a closed loop method of power control that is invisible to the user. Most power control
systems in GSM sense either forward power or collector/drain current. The RF3166 does not use a power detector. A high-
speed control loop is incorporated to regulate the collector voltage of the amplifier while the stage are held at a constant bias.
The VRAMP signal is multiplied by a factor of 2.3 and the collector voltage for all three stages is regulated to the multiplied
VRAMP voltage. The basic circuit is shown in the following diagram.
By regulating the power, the stages are held in saturation across all power levels. As the required output power is decreased
from full power down to 0dBm, the collector voltage is also decreased. This regulation of output power is demonstrated in
Equation 1 where the relationship between collector voltage and output power is shown. Although load impedance affects out-
put power, supply fluctuations are the dominate mode of power variations. With the RF3166 regulating collector voltage, the
dominant mode of power fluctuations is eliminated.
(Eq. 1)
There are several key factors to consider in the implementation of a transmitter solution for a mobile phone. Some of them are:
• Current draw and system efficiency
• Power variation due to Supply Voltage
• Power variation due to frequency
• Power variation due to temperature
• Input impedance variation
• Noise power
• Loop stability
• Loop bandwidth variations across power levels
• Burst timing and transient spectrum trade offs
•Harmonics
VRAMP
-
+
-
+
H(s)
VBATT
Saturation
Detector
RF IN
RF OUT
TX ENABLE
3 dB BW
300 kHz
P
dBm
10
2 V
CC
V
SAT
–
⋅
()
2
8 R
LOAD
10
3
–
⋅⋅
-------------------------------------------
log
⋅
=
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