This disclosure relates to signal transmission. This disclosure also relates to the transmit circuitry in user equipment such as cellular telephones and other devices.
Rapid advances in electronics and communication technologies, driven by immense customer demand, have resulted in the widespread adoption of mobile communication devices. The extent of the proliferation of such devices is readily apparent in view of some estimates that put the number of wireless subscriber connections in use around the world at over 85% of the world's population. Furthermore, past estimates have indicated that (as just three examples) the United States, Italy, and the UK have more mobile phones in use in each country than there are people even living in those countries. Improvements in wireless communication devices, particularly in their ability to reduce power consumption, will help continue to make such devices attractive options for the consumer.
The innovation may be better understood with reference to the following drawings and description. In the figures, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the different views.
The discussion below makes reference to user equipment. User equipment may take many different forms and have many different functions. As one example, user equipment may be a 2G, 3G, or 4G/LTE cellular phone capable of making and receiving wireless phone calls, and transmitting and receiving data. The user equipment may also be a smartphone that, in addition to making and receiving phone calls, runs any number or type of applications. User equipment may be virtually any device that transmits and receives information, including as additional examples a driver assistance module in a vehicle, an emergency transponder, a pager, a satellite television receiver, a networked stereo receiver, a computer system, music player, or virtually any other device. The techniques discussed below may also be implemented in a base station or other network controller that communicates with the user equipment.
The user equipment 100 includes a communication interface 112, system logic 114, and a user interface 118. The system logic 114 may include any combination of hardware, software, firmware, or other logic. The system logic 114 may be implemented, for example, in a system on a chip (SoC), application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or other circuitry. The system logic 114 is part of the implementation of any desired functionality in the UE 100. In that regard, the system logic 114 may include logic that facilitates, as examples, running applications; accepting user inputs; saving and retrieving application data; establishing, maintaining, and terminating cellular phone calls or data connections for, as one example, Internet connectivity; establishing, maintaining, and terminating wireless network connections, Bluetooth connections, or other connections; and displaying relevant information on the user interface 118. The user interface 118 may include a graphical user interface, touch sensitive display, voice or facial recognition inputs, buttons, switches, speakers and other user interface elements.
In the communication interface 112, Radio Frequency (RF) transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) circuitry 130 handles transmission and reception of signals through the antenna(s) 132. The communication interface 112 may include one or more transceivers. The transceivers may be wireless transceivers that include modulation/demodulation circuitry, digital to analog converters (DACs), shaping tables, analog to digital converters (ADCs), filters, waveform shapers, pre-amplifiers, power amplifiers and/or other logic for transmitting and receiving through one or more antennas, or through a physical (e.g., wireline) medium.
As one implementation example, the communication interface 112 and system logic 114 may include a BCM2091 EDGE/HSPA Multi-Mode, Multi-Band Cellular Transceiver and a BCM59056 advanced power management unit (PMU), controlled by a BCM28150 HSPA+ system-on-a-chip (SoC) baseband smartphone processer or a BCM25331 Athena (™) baseband processor. These devices or other similar system solutions may be extended as described below to provide the additional functionality described below. These integrated circuits, as well as other hardware and software implementation options for the user equipment 100, are available from Broadcom Corporation of Irvine California.
The transmitted and received signals may adhere to any of a diverse array of formats, protocols, modulations (e.g., QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM, or 256-QAM), frequency channels, bit rates, and encodings. As one specific example, the communication interface 112 may support transmission and reception under the 4G/Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards. The techniques described below, however, are applicable to other communications technologies whether arising from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), GSM (R) Association, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), High Speed Packet Access (HSPA)+, or other partnerships or standards bodies.
The system logic 114 may include one or more processors 116 and memories 120. The memory 120 stores, for example, control instructions 122 that the processor 116 executes to carry out any of the processing or control functionality described below, operating in communication with the logic in the communication interface 112. For example, the system logic 114 may reprogram, adapt, or modify parameters or operational characteristics of the logic in the communication interface 112. The system logic 114 may make adaptations to, as a specific example, a shaping table in the communication interface 112.
The control parameters 124 provide and specify configuration and operating options for the control instructions 122. As will be explained in more detail below, the memory 120 may also store a library of data sets that represent shaping tables 126 and sensor inputs 128, as well as operating parameters 130 received from the network controller 150. The sensor inputs 128 may include a temperature obtained from the temperature sensor 132, or other inputs from other sensors. The UE 100 may reprogram a given shaping table with another data set from the library based on commanded output power and in response to communication events. The new shaping table appropriate for a particular output power may also be influenced by temperature (or other sensor inputs), as well as the operating parameters 130, including bandwidth specified by the network controller 150, closed loop power correction values, and other power parameters sent by the network controller 150.
As noted above, the UE 100 is in communication with the network controller 150 over one or more control channels 152. The network controller 150 sends messages to the UE 100 over the control channels 152. The messages may include operating parameters 154, such as power control parameters, bandwidth allocation parameters, and other operating parameters. The operating parameters 154 may include, for example, commanded output power levels for the UE for any upcoming frame, subframe, symbol or other communication event. As a specific example, the network controller 150 may specify an output power level for the UE for sending the next Sounding Reference Symbol (SRS) in a subframe of an LTE frame. In some implementations, such as LTE implementations, the network controller 150 may send operating parameters 154 such as center frequency, transmit channel selection, path loss compensation factors, UE specific parameters, UE specific modulation and coding information, and closed loop correction values, from which the UE 100 determines its output power. The UE 100 may respond to messages that include such operating parameters within a particular time window, e.g., within four LTE subframes (4 ms) from when the network controller 150 sent the message.
The logic 200 shown in
The duplexer 208 may implement a transmit/receive switch under control of the system logic 114. In one switch position, the duplexer 208 passes amplified transmit signals through the antenna 212. In a different switch position, the duplexer 208 passes received signals from the antenna 212 to the feedback path 226.
The baseband controller 202 may be part of the system logic 114 and provides, e.g., inphase/quadrature (I/Q) input signal samples to the modulus logic 214. The modulus logic 214 may output the absolute value (e.g., the square root of I squared plus q squared) of the input signal to a shaping table 216. The shaping table 216 maps input values to output values in a linear or non-linear manner. The output of the shaping table 216 feeds the digital to analog converter (DAC) 218. In turn, the DAC 218 outputs the envelope of the input signal as modified by the shaping table to the envelope tracking (ET) power supply 220. Said another way, the shaping table 216 implements a non-linear mapping between the modulus of the signal to be transmitted and the voltage that appears at the output of the DAC 218, to which the ET switcher is responsive.
The shaping table 216 may be implemented in many ways. For example, the shaping table may be a lookup table implemented in software or hardware. The shaping table 216 may include, for instance, 64 or 128 table data set values that map input signal values to output signal values. The shaping table implementation may perform linear or non-linear interpolation between specific data set values, for any input signal value that does not exactly correspond to one of the sample points having a specific data set value in the shaping table 216. In other implementations, the shaping table 216 may be implemented as program instructions that calculate the output value as a function of input signal value according to any desired input to output relationship curve.
Configuration interfaces 226 and 228, e.g., serial or parallel data interfaces, control pins, or other interfaces, may be provided to configure the shaping table 216 and ET 220, or other parts of the user equipment 100. The configuration interfaces 226 and 228 may be MIPI Alliance specified interfaces or other types of interfaces.
An envelope tracking power supply (ET) 220 receives the envelope signal from the DAC 218. The ET 220 may output a PA power supply voltage signal that follows the envelope signal, plus a preconfigured amount of headroom. The PA power supply voltage signal provides power to the PA 206 for driving the antenna 212 with the transmit signal.
The logic 200 may support a wide range of output powers. The output power employed at any particular time may be specified by a base station, for example. In some implementations, the logic 200 may generate output powers at the antenna 212 of 23 dBm. As noted above, the duplexer 208 may separate the transmit path and receive path, and in doing so introduces some power loss, typically on the order of 3 dBm. Thus, to achieve 23 dBm output power at the antenna 212, the PA 206 produces approximately a 26 dBm signal. Doing so, however, consumes a significant amount of power due to inefficiencies in the components of the logic 200. In particular, the PA 206 itself may be on the order of 40% efficient. Given these losses, certain techniques are described below that result in significant power savings for the device 100.
Specifically, the logic 200 may implement reprogramming of the shaping table 216 in response to particular events. The reprogramming carried out (e.g., the particular shaping table data set programmed into the shaping table) may vary according to the output power commanded of the device 100 by the network controller 150, or according to other operational parameters specified by the network controller 150. The events may include, as examples, the occurrence of communication frame boundaries, subframe boundaries, and symbol boundaries within frames and subframes. Said another way, the logic 200 may reconfigure the shaping table 216 as a function of output power, synchronously or asynchronously with respect to frame, subframe, and symbol boundaries. The frames and subframes may be, as examples, LTE frames (e.g., 10 ms frames) and subframes (e.g., 1 ms subframes). The adaptation of the shaping table 216 may result in significant power savings for the reasons described below.
As a specific example, the UE 100 (e.g., a smart phone) may include a baseband controller and a shaping table. The shaping table modifies input signal samples to provide envelope tracking signals characterized by a signal envelope. The UE 100 also includes an envelope tracking (ET) power supply that receives the envelope tracking signals and outputs a power supply voltage signal that approximates the signal envelope. A power amplifier receives the power supply voltage signal and drives a transmit antenna. In this system, the baseband controller obtains the input signal samples corresponding to a desired transmit signal, and provide the input signal samples to the shaping table. The baseband controller also determines an upcoming communication event, and responds to the upcoming communication event by determining a modification to the shaping table for handling the upcoming communication event. The baseband controller applies the modification to the shaping table in preparation for the upcoming communication event.
In some implementations, the baseband controller determines the upcoming communication event by receiving a power control message from a network controller. The power control message may include, as examples, a commanded output power, or operating parameters that determine an output power, at which to drive the transmit antenna, and a communication subframe at which the commanded output power is required. The baseband controller may then determine the modification by searching a library of shaping tables to locate a shaping table data set applicable to the commanded output power for the communication subframe, and may apply the modification by loading the shaping table data set into the shaping table.
The UE 100 switches its output power by configuring one or more functional blocks in the logic 200. For example, the UE 100 may adjust the gain of the preamplifier 204 or logic associated with the RF IC, may apply gain to the digital signal samples (e.g., by digital pre-distortion 212), or in other ways. The net result is that the UE 100 applies to the antenna 212 a transmit signal with the required output power.
The amount of power consumed to produce a given output power depends, to large extent, on the PA 206. The ET power supply 220 produces the power amplifier voltage supply signal based on the envelope of the signal input to the ET power supply 220. In turn, the envelope depends on the effect of the shaping table 216 on the signal samples input to the shaping table 216. Some shaping tables are more power efficient than others for specific output powers. Accordingly, the logic 200 may modify the shaping table 216 responsive to the required output power, such as the output powers P1, P2, and P3, and responsive to communication events, including subframe or symbol boundaries.
The power control logic 404 accepts several inputs, such as the communication event (e.g., an upcoming SRS), operating parameters (e.g., commanded output power), and sensor inputs (e.g., temperature). The power control logic 404 may be implemented in hardware, software, or both to determine, given the inputs, how to configure the logic 200 to achieve the commanded output power. Furthermore, the power control logic 404 may select, given the commanded output power, a shaping table form the library 402 that achieves any desired power goal. The power goal may be consuming the least amount of energy, for example, given the commanded output power, or may be reducing power consumption by more than a threshold amount, given the commanded output power.
When the power control logic 404 will modify the shaping table 216, the power control logic 404 first obtains the new shaping table from the library 402. The power control logic 404 then reprograms the shaping table 216 with the input/output relationship represented by the new shaping table. As examples, reprogramming may be done by replacing lookup table data set values in non-volatile memory, or by replacing a calculation function in memory with a new function. The new shaping table then outputs envelope tracking signals characterized by a signal envelope for the DAC 218 which feeds the ET power supply 220. The power supply voltage output of the ET power supply 220 may then result in more power efficient operation at the commanded output power, than if the shaping table were not modified.
The UE 100 determines a new output power (504), and when the new output power is applicable (506). The new output power may be applicable for the next subframe, the next symbol within a subframe, or at some later subframe or symbol. In some implementations, the operating parameters 154 may specify when the output power should change, and in other implementations, the UE 100 may assume that the output power should change after a specific delay, e.g., at the next subframe, or at some other later time.
The logic 500 also searches the shaping table library 402 for a new shaping table commensurate with the new output power (508). For example, the library 402 may include shaping tables at increments of 2 dBm of output power, and the logic 500 may determine whether the new output power is different enough to make a transition to a new shaping table. If a shaping table is found (510), the logic 500 may further determine whether the new shaping table meets a goal (512). The goal may be a power saving goal, such that the new shaping table would save more than a power saving threshold amount of power for transmission at the new output power compared to the existing shaping table. In other words, while there may be a different shaping table available in the library that can save some power, the power saving may not be significant enough to warrant reprogramming of the shaping table 216. The logic 500 may implement other goals as well.
If no appropriate shaping table is found (510), or the shaping table that is found does not meet the goals (512), then the logic 500 may retain the existing shaping table (518). Otherwise, the logic 500 retrieves the new shaping table (514), and reprograms the shaping table 216 with the newly selected shaping table (516).
In TDD operation, a 10 ms LTE frame 602 may be apportioned into ten (10) 1 ms subframes S0-S9, and each may be further subdivided into two slots, except for S1 and S6. The subframe S1 and S6 may include these fields: Downlink Pilot Time Slot (DwPTS) 604, Guard Period (GP) 606 and Uplink Pilot Time Slot (UpPTS) 608. The UpPTS 608 may have a one symbol duration and carry the SRS, or the UpPTS 608 may have a two symbol duration and carry an SRS, or an SRS and a short random access preamble.
In
The methods, devices, and logic described above may be implemented in many different ways in many different combinations of hardware, software or both hardware and software. For example, all or parts of the system may include circuitry in a controller, a microprocessor, or an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or may be implemented with discrete logic or components, or a combination of other types of analog or digital circuitry, combined on a single integrated circuit or distributed among multiple integrated circuits. All or part of the logic described above may be implemented as instructions for execution by a processor, controller, or other processing device and may be stored in a tangible or non-transitory machine-readable or computer-readable medium such as flash memory, random access memory (RAM) or read only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM) or other machine-readable medium such as a compact disc read only memory (CDROM), or magnetic or optical disk. Thus, a product, such as a computer program product, may include a storage medium and computer readable instructions stored on the medium, which when executed in an endpoint, computer system, or other device, cause the device to perform operations according to any of the description above.
The processing capability of the system may be distributed among multiple system components, such as among multiple processors and memories, optionally including multiple distributed processing systems. Parameters, databases, and other data structures may be separately stored and managed, may be incorporated into a single memory or database, may be logically and physically organized in many different ways, and may implemented in many ways, including data structures such as linked lists, hash tables, or implicit storage mechanisms. Programs may be parts (e.g., subroutines) of a single program, separate programs, distributed across several memories and processors, or implemented in many different ways, such as in a library, such as a shared library (e.g., a dynamic link library (DLL)). The DLL, for example, may store code that performs any of the system processing described above. While various embodiments of the invention have been described, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that many more embodiments and implementations are possible within the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not to be restricted except in light of the attached claims and their equivalents.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/732,780, filed 3 Dec. 2012, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. This application also claims priority to, and incorporates by reference, U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/804,537, filed 22 Mar. 2013.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61804537 | Mar 2013 | US | |
61732780 | Dec 2012 | US |