Amplifiers

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The performance of communication systems, in both space and ground segments, is degraded by the nonlinearity of the power amplifiers that are operated in saturation to obtain higher efficiency. Linearizing is the technique used to improve the performance of communication systems when power amplifiers are operated in saturation. The...

A line of variable gain amplifiers (VGA) has been introduced for use in transmitter and receiver automatic gain control (AGC) circuits, and as variable gain blocks following low noise amplifier stages in high dynamic range receiver front ends. The new amplifiers integrate high performance amplifiers and attenuators within a...

Two broadband satellite networks are in the final stages of development and plan a service launch for North America in early 2004. Systems like these are expected to provide wideband, high speed communications for Internet and multimedia applications across North America and Europe for years to come. High power...

This article continues the trend of previous publications, 1,2 to simplify the prediction of RF performance of systems designed for wireless digital communications. The first shows the correlation between sidelobes and intermodulation (IM) products. Sidelobes are the result of the spectrum re-growth when a digitally modulated signal is applied...

A versatile new three-stage buffer amplifier has been introduced that is ideal for use as a receiver front end low noise amplifier, but, as a result of its dual bias configurations, it can also be used as a driver amplifier or LO buffer with good linearity and higher gain....

Splitting an RF input signal within a VCR or television was never much of a design challenge for manufacturers when the signal was analog. That changed dramatically, however, when CATV systems made the transition from analog to digital to provide addressability, video on demand, Internet access and other services....

This is the best time to be a consumer of electronic products. Wireless mobile devices, especially cellular handsets, have more features, are smaller and have better battery life than ever before. The cellular handset manufacturing industry is continuously challenged to deliver high performance, cost-effective, small form function products to...

This article is intended to provide insight into the effective operation of variable gain amplifiers (VGA) in automatic gain control (AGC) applications. Figure 1 is a general block diagram for an AGC loop. The input signal passes through the VGA to produce the output level to be stabilized. The...

Wireless communications handsets are increasing in functionality through the addition of features such as GPS, color displays and PDA functions. At the same time the handset is maintaining a roughly constant price and size target. Because of this trend, handset manufacturers are requiring higher levels of integration from component...

As wireless systems evolve from second- to third- or fourth-generation, the linearity, efficiency and bandwidth requirements for power amplifiers become more stringent. Many techniques, including feedforward, envelope feedback and manifold types of predistorters, have been employed to effectively satisfy these performance requirements and to reduce the production costs for...