Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03F—AMPLIFIERS
  • H03F1/00—Details of amplifiers with only discharge tubes, only semiconductor devices or only unspecified devices as amplifying elements
  • H03F1/52—Circuit arrangements for protecting such amplifiers
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03F—AMPLIFIERS
  • H03F3/00—Amplifiers with only discharge tubes or only semiconductor devices as amplifying elements
  • H03F3/189—High-frequency amplifiers, e.g. radio frequency amplifiers
  • H03F3/19—High-frequency amplifiers, e.g. radio frequency amplifiers with semiconductor devices only
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03G—CONTROL OF AMPLIFICATION
  • H03G11/00—Limiting amplitude; Limiting rate of change of amplitude ; Clipping in general
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03G—CONTROL OF AMPLIFICATION
  • H03G11/00—Limiting amplitude; Limiting rate of change of amplitude ; Clipping in general
  • H03G11/002—Limiting amplitude; Limiting rate of change of amplitude ; Clipping in general without controlling loop
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03G—CONTROL OF AMPLIFICATION
  • H03G11/00—Limiting amplitude; Limiting rate of change of amplitude ; Clipping in general
  • H03G11/02—Limiting amplitude; Limiting rate of change of amplitude ; Clipping in general by means of diodes
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03G—CONTROL OF AMPLIFICATION
  • H03G11/00—Limiting amplitude; Limiting rate of change of amplitude ; Clipping in general
  • H03G11/06—Limiters of angle-modulated signals; such limiters combined with discriminators
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03G—CONTROL OF AMPLIFICATION
  • H03G7/00—Volume compression or expansion in amplifiers
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03F—AMPLIFIERS
  • H03F2200/00—Indexing scheme relating to amplifiers
  • H03F2200/211—Indexing scheme relating to amplifiers the input of an amplifier can be attenuated by a continuously controlled transistor attenuator
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03F—AMPLIFIERS
  • H03F2200/00—Indexing scheme relating to amplifiers
  • H03F2200/294—Indexing scheme relating to amplifiers the amplifier being a low noise amplifier [LNA]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03F—AMPLIFIERS
  • H03F2200/00—Indexing scheme relating to amplifiers
  • H03F2200/444—Diode used as protection means in an amplifier, e.g. as a limiter or as a switch
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H03—ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY
  • H03F—AMPLIFIERS
  • H03F2200/00—Indexing scheme relating to amplifiers
  • H03F2200/451—Indexing scheme relating to amplifiers the amplifier being a radio frequency amplifier

Definitions

• Radiofrequency power limiter Radiofrequency transmission and / or reception string and associated low noise amplification stage
• the present invention relates to radiofrequency power limiters (RF in the following).
• a limiter 10 is generally used in a reception channel 1, downstream of an RF reception antenna 20 and upstream of an amplification stage 30 and a treatment stage 40
• the amplification stage 30 comprises, at the input, a low noise amplifier 32, called LNA (according to the acronym "Low Noise Amplifier”).
• LNA low noise amplifier
• the function of the limiter is to protect the LNA amplifier from high power signals received by the antenna.
• Such a limiter is also used downstream of a LNA amplifier that is robust to high power signals, in order to protect the downstream part of the reception chain, for example components of the processing stage that would be sensitive to power levels. too high, such as coders.
• such a limiter is used in any RF transmission / reception chain requiring, at one point or another, a limitation of the level of the maximum power delivered at the input of a sensitive component.
• the limiters are generally made from PIN diode because they offer good power handling.
• the PIN diodes are placed in a "head-to-tail" configuration.
• the limiter 100 comprises two pairs of diodes 102, 104 and 1 12, 1 14, the diodes of each pair being placed head to tail.
• Such a configuration makes it possible to clipping the positive half-wave and the negative half-wave of an input signal, beyond a power threshold P0.
• the PIN diodes are placed in parallel.
• the limiter 200 comprises three diodes 202, 204, 206 in parallel. Such a configuration makes it possible to clip the input signal from a power threshold P0.
• the triggering threshold P0 of the limiter is mainly related to the type of PIN diodes used and their characteristics in direct current (DC). For example, in FIG. 4 representing the output power Pout of the limiter 100 as a function of the input power Pin, the threshold P0 is approximately 14.75 dBm. However, the PO threshold can not be set. This lack of "reconfigurability" of a limiter does not produce a "standard” limiter and use it in different applications operating in the same bandwidth.
• the invention therefore aims to overcome the aforementioned problem, in particular by providing a reconfigurable limiter.
• the subject of the invention is a radiofrequency power limiter, characterized in that it comprises at least one transistor, a drain of the or each transistor being connected directly to a mesh connecting an input and an output of the limiter, a source of the or each transistor being connected to a common reference potential, and a gate of the or each transistor being connected to a common control potential, the or each transistor being unpolarized between its drain and its source during the operation of the limiter.
• the limiter comprises one or more of the following characteristics, taken separately or in any technically possible combination:
• the mesh connecting the input and the output of the limiter comprises, between the connection nodes of the drains of the first and second transistors, an intermediate inductance
• the mesh connecting the input to the output of the limiter comprises an input inductance between the input of the limiter and a connection node of the drain of an upstream transistor, and / or an output inductance between a connection node of the drain of a downstream transistor among said at least one transistor and the output of the limiter;
• the gate of the or each transistor is connected to the common control potential (Voff), via a protection resistor;
• the drain of the or each transistor is connected directly to the mesh connecting the input and the output of the limiter
• the source of the or each transistor is connected directly to the reference potential
• control potential corresponds to a first terminal of a voltage source, the other terminal of the voltage source being connected to said reference potential;
• the voltage source is controlled by a suitable control signal
• the or each transistor is a field effect transistor
• An electrical equivalent in a low power operating area is given by a transmission line; it is realized in a power technology, in particular a technology based on Gallium Nitride.
• the invention also relates to a component of the low noise amplifier type, characterized in that it incorporates a limiter as defined above.
• the invention also relates to a radio frequency signal transmission or reception channel, characterized in that it comprises a limiter as defined above.
• FIG. 1 schematically represents an RF reception chain
• FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a diode-to-diode limiter according to the state of the art
• Figure 3 is a block diagram of a diode limiter in parallel according to the state of the art
• Fig. 4 is a graph showing the output power as a function of the input power at 10 GHz for the back-to-back diode limiter of Fig. 2;
• FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a cold FET limiter with GaN technology according to the invention.
• FIG. 6 is an equivalent diagram of the limiter of FIG. 5 in a linear operating zone
• Fig. 7 is a graph of the transmission response of the limiter of Fig. 5 in a linear operating area
• FIG. 8 is a graph of the reflection coefficients at the input and at the output of the limiter of FIG. 5 in a linear operating zone
• Fig. 9 is a graph of gain versus input power for a frequency of 10 GHz for different values of the control potential of the limiter of Fig. 5;
• Fig. 10 is a graph of the output power vs. input power for a frequency of 10 GHz for different values of the control potential of the limiter of Fig. 5.
• the RF power limiter 300 is made from a plurality of transistors Ti. These are preferably field effect transistors FET (for "Field Effect Transistor” in English). If another type of transistor is used, the correspondence between source, drain and gate of a FET transistor to the corresponding terminals of this other type of transistor is obvious to those skilled in the art.
• FET Field Effect Transistor
• the limiter 300 comprises four transistors Ti identical to each other.
• the transistors are placed in parallel between the input E and the output S of the limiter
• the mesh connecting the input E to the output S comprises first, second, third and fourth nodes, Ni.
• the drain d of the i th transistor Ti is connected to the i th node Ni, while the source s of the i th transistor Ti is connected to a reference potential, for example to ground.
• the transistors Ti are said to be cold, that is to say that they are not biased between their drain d and their source s during the operation of the limiter 300.
• the limiter 300 also comprises a plurality of Li inductors (also called self-inductances). They are placed in series, with respect to one another, in the mesh connecting the input E to the output S.
• Li inductors also called self-inductances
• FIG. 5 five inductances Li are used: the first L1 between the input E and the first node N1 ; the second L2, between the first node N1 and the second node N2; the third L3, between the second node N2 and the third node N3; the fourth L4, between the third node N3 and the fourth node N4; and the fifth L5, between the fourth node N4 and the output S.
• Li impedances for example have the same value L.
• first and fifth inductors L1 and L5 is optional to take into account the wiring son connected to the input E and the output S of the limiter 300, these wiring son can be likened to inductances.
• the grid g. the i th transistor Ti is connected via a protective resistor R, to a polarization potential (or control voltage) Voff.
• the resistors Ri have an identical value R.
• a voltage source 320 makes it possible to establish the value of the potential difference between the polarization potential and the reference potential, that is to say between the gate g. and the source s of each transistor Ti.
• the bias potential Voff is selected and applied so as to block the transistors Ti.
• the transistors Ti connected in parallel, are, as a first approximation, equivalent to capacitors Ci.
• the equivalent capacities Ci are identical to each other. Thus, in the linear operating zone of the limiter 300, it is equivalent to a transmission line. Such an electrical equivalent of the limiter of FIG. 5 is shown in FIG.
• the linear operating zone of the limiter 300 is given by the frequency range having a gain between 0 and -3 dB.
• the linear operating zone extends to a characteristic cutoff frequency fc.
• Such a limiter since it is equivalent to a transmission line makes it possible to limit transmission losses within the linear operating zone of the limiter (that is to say outside the power limitation range, below the P0 threshold).
• Such a limiter also has a good input power matching (curve C1 in FIG. 8) and output (curve C2 in FIG. 8), over an extended frequency range.
• the power operating range of the limiter 300 is adjustable using the value of the control voltage Voff applied by the voltage source 320.
• FIGS. 9 and 10 respectively show the power gain of the limiter 300 as a function of the input power Pin, or, to allow a comparison with FIG. 4 of the prior art, the output power Pout. according to the Pin input power.
• FIG. 9 thus shows the evolution of the gain of the limiter 300 as a function of the input power Pin of a 10 GHz RF signal, for a control voltage Voff applied between the gate g. and the source s of cold FET transistors between -20 V and
• FIG. 10 shows the evolution of the RF power Pout at the output of the limiter 300 as a function of the input power Pin of a 10 GHz RF signal, for a control voltage Voff applied between the gate g. and the source s of cold FET transistors between -20 V and -4 V.
• the adaptation of the voltage delivered by the source 320 thus makes it possible to reconfigure the limiter 300 as a function of its use. It can be a fixed voltage source, chosen during the production of the reception chain, or a modifiable voltage source, depending on a suitable control signal.
• the diodes on which the limiters of the prior art are constructed are not always available in integrated circuit technologies of the type MMIC (according to the acronym "Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit”).
• MMIC Complementary Metal-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Oxide-Ox-Ox
• the solution presented above allows integration in MMIC technology. It is for example possible to integrate, on the same circuit, a limiter and a low noise amplifier (LNA). The component thus obtained allows a saving of space and thus to achieve an RF receiver chain having increased compactness.
• LNA low noise amplifier
• the limiter shown above can be realized in a power technology, preferably a power MMIC technology.
• a power MMIC technology based on Gallium Nitride (GaN) makes it possible to produce a limiter with good power handling.
• GaN Gallium Nitride

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Power Engineering (AREA)
• Amplifiers (AREA)

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• 2013
  • 2013-11-18 FR FR1302646A patent/FR3013536B1/fr active Active
• 2014
  • 2014-11-18 EP EP14799480.0A patent/EP3072234A1/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2014-11-18 WO PCT/EP2014/074931 patent/WO2015071495A1/fr active Application Filing
  • 2014-11-18 US US15/035,561 patent/US9755586B2/en active Active

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