KR20070113363A - Front end module of multi-band - Google Patents

Abstract

A multi band front end module is provided to minimize a size of the front end module by reducing the number of devices repeatedly used in correspondence with the number of processed frequency bands. A multi band front end module(100) includes a power amplifier module(130) and a reference voltage providing module(135). The power amplifier module amplifies power of a multi band signal. The reference voltage providing module processes an enable signal of first and second band signals, receives power for generating reference voltage, and provides reference voltage for amplification of the first and second band signals to the power amplifier module.

Description

Front end module of multi-band

1 is a block diagram schematically showing the components of a conventional dual band tri-mode communication module.

2 is a block diagram schematically illustrating the components of a multiband front end module according to an embodiment of the present invention;

3 is a circuit diagram schematically illustrating a circuit implementation form of a power amplifier provided in a multi-band front end module according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 4 is a circuit diagram schematically showing the internal configuration of the reference voltage providing unit package provided in the multi-band front end module according to an embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a data table illustrating an operation state according to an input signal of a reference voltage providing unit provided in a multi-band front end module according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

<Explanation of symbols for main parts of drawing>

100: multi-band front end module 110: transmission and reception filter unit

112: PCS duplexer 114: multi-switch device (SP3T)

116: DCN duplexer 120: power detector

122: PCS combiner 124: RF detector

126: DCN coupler 130: power amplifier

131: PCS PAM 132: DCN PAM

133: PCS Tx Filter 134: DCN Tx Filter

135: reference voltage providing unit Q1: first transistor (npn BJT)

Q2: 2nd transistor (pnp BJT) R1 ~ R4: Resistance

The present invention relates to a front end module for processing multiband frequency signals.

Currently, various mobile communication terminal products such as mobile phones, smart phones, and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) are used, and these mobile communication terminals basically provide a wireless communication function by mounting an RF communication module.

As RF communication modules installed in mobile communication terminals, products that process multi-band frequencies have been released. For example, dual-band communication modules have two different frequencies in the 1900 MHz band (PCS) and 800 MHz band (DCN). It is equipped with a diplexer that can receive through and adds a GPS (Global Position System) function to the dual band communication module, three frequency bands (PCS: 1850 ~ 1990MHz, GPS: 1570 ~ 1580MHz, DCN: 824 ~ A triple-band scheme capable of processing 894 MHz) is used.

As such, recent mobile communication terminals have implemented not only a multi-band function but also a multi-function. Therefore, chip devices for processing various multimedia data are mounted and correspondingly, RF communication is performed. The mounting area of the module is gradually decreasing.

For this reason, miniaturization of the RF communication module is considered the key to developing the smallest mobile communication terminal products with multi band and multi functions.

1 is a block diagram schematically illustrating the components of a conventional dual band tri mode communication module 10.

Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional dual band tri mode communication module 10 includes an antenna 15, a multiple switch 14, a DCN signal processing terminal 11, a PCS signal processing terminal 13, and a HDET (Hyper Dectecter) ( 12) and the controller 16, wherein the DCN signal processing stage 11 includes a first duplexer 11d, a first coupler 11c, a first power amplifier (PA) 11b, A first filter 11a is provided, and the PCS signal processing stage 13 includes a second duplexer 13d, a second combiner 13c, a second power amplifier 13b, and a second filter 13a. .

The antenna 15 is provided with a triple band band antenna that transmits and receives and tunes a DCN / PCS signal, and the multi-switch 14 is provided with a single pole three throw (SP3T) switch. Separate / process.

The first duplexer 11d and the second duplexer 13d selectively transmit the transmit / receive signal among the frequency signals in the DCN and PCS regions to the antenna 15 or the power amplifiers 11b and 13b, respectively.

In addition, the first Vref switch 11e and the second Vref switch 13e respectively provide voltages, which are the reference when the DCN band and PCS band signals are amplified, to the first power amplifier 11b and the second power amplifier 13b. In addition, the first power amplifier 11b and the second power amplifier 13b amplify the power so that the frequency signal of the DCN, PCS region can be transmitted, respectively.

The first filter 11a and the second filter 13a remove noise components from signals processed by an intermediate frequency processing stage (not shown), and extract only frequency signals of the corresponding DCN and PCS regions, respectively, to obtain first power. Transfer to amplifier 11b and second power amplifier 13b. In this case, the first coupler 11c and the second coupler 13c are directional couplers, respectively, between the first power amplifier 11b and the first duplexer 11d, and the second power amplifier 13b and the second coupler. It is connected between the duplexer 13d to couple the DCN signal and the PCS signal, and the coupled signal is transferred to the HDET 12.

The HDET 12 checks the amount of power of the transmission signal (mainly the amount of power processed by the first power amplifier 11b and the second power amplifier 13b) and regularly transmits it to the controller 16. Thus, the controller 16 can calculate the change in the amount of transmission power.

As described above, the conventional dual band communication module 10 has many components. In particular, the Vref switches 11e and 13e have current flowing through the turn on or reference terminals of the power amplifiers 11b and 13b. In order to solve the problem, it must be provided, and the communication module 10 has to be provided as many as the number of multi-band has been an obstacle to miniaturization of the mobile communication terminal product.

When the number of the Vref switches 11e and 13e is increased in this way, the arrangement design becomes difficult when the elements are mounted on the substrate, and it becomes difficult to secure the distance between the elements due to the radio wave interference, thereby degrading the signal processing capability.

In addition, since the Vref switches 11e and 13e are single package devices, the price of the Vref switches 11e and 13e is higher than that of the passive components, thereby increasing the production cost of the mobile communication terminal product.

According to the present invention, in the case of a front end module integrating each component such as a filter, an amplifier, a power detector, and a transmit / receive filter stage on a single module and processing a frequency of a multi-band region, such as a switch element that provides a reference voltage, By minimizing the number of devices to be provided by the number of band areas, a multi-band front end module is provided which facilitates circuit layout design and minimizes the size of a mobile communication terminal product.

Multi-band front end module according to the present invention includes a power amplifier for amplifying the power of the multi-band signal; And processing an enable signal of the first band signal and the second band signal, and receiving a reference voltage generation power to provide a reference voltage for amplifying the first band signal and the second band signal to the power amplifier. And a reference voltage providing unit.

Hereinafter, a multiband front end module according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In describing the exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the multiband front end module includes dual band frequencies of DCN and PCS bands. It is assumed to be an RF module to process.

However, the structure of the multi-band front end module according to the present invention, for example, the dual band tri-mode front end module (Dual Band Tri Mode FEM) that handles the frequency of the DCN, PCS, GPS bands (3) Note that it is also applicable to the RF module to be processed.

2 is a block diagram schematically illustrating components of a multiband front end module according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, the multi-band front end module 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention includes a transmit / receive filter unit 110, a power detector 120, and a power amplifier 130. The unit 110 includes a multiple switching element 114, a PCS duplexer 112 and a DCN duplexer 116, and the power detector 120 is a PCS band directional coupler (hereinafter referred to as a "PCS combiner") ( 122), a DCN band directional coupler (hereinafter referred to as "DCN coupler") 126, and an RF detector (124).

In addition, the power amplifier 130 includes a PCS PAM (Power Amplifier Module) 131, a DCN PAM 132, a PCS Tx filter 133, a DCN Tx filter 134, and a reference voltage providing unit 135. It is configured by.

The multi-switching element 114 is provided as a semiconductor integrated single pole three throw (SP3T) switch element to separate / process two band domain frequencies of PCS and DCN, and is connected to the antenna 200, the antenna 200 Is preferably provided as a dual band antenna for transmitting and receiving by tuning the DCN / PCS signal.

The multi-switching element 114 is a control unit (not shown) outside the front end module 100; for reference, each terminal of the multi-band front end module 100 shown in FIGS. 2 to 4 is connected to the control unit. As a terminal, a control signal terminal (a) connected to the following will be described with reference to each terminal below), the control signal terminal (a) receives a control voltage is applied to the antenna 200, The transmission and reception signals transmitted between the PCS duplexer 112 or the DCN duplexer 116 are respectively distributed to the corresponding components.

In addition, the multi-switching element 114 may be linked to an external GPS (Global Positioning System) receiving filter (connected with a GPS processor), for example, the multi-band front-end module 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention Can be operated as a Dual Band Quad Mode (DBQM) front-end module supporting A-GPS.

The PCS duplexer 112 and the DCN duplexer 116 selectively transmit and receive signals of the PCS and DCN bands to the multi-switching element 114 or the PAMs 131 and 132, respectively, so that the transmission signal is transmitted through the antenna 200. Allows the transmitted or received signal to be processed by the controller.

The power detector 120 is connected between the transmission and reception filter unit 110 and the power amplifier 130 to sense the amount of power of the transmission signal, and transfer the sensed data to the control unit to amplify the PAMs 131 and 132. Take control.

The PCS combiner 122 is connected between the PCS duplexer 112 and the PCS PAM 131 to couple the amplified PCS signal through the PCS PAM 131, and the DCN combiner 126 is connected to the DCN duplexer 116 and DCN. It is connected between the PAM 132 and couples the amplified DCN signal through the DCN PAM (132).

The couplers 122 and 126 may be provided as coupling line couplers in the form of a coupling element or transmission line implemented as a single semiconductor chip element.

The PCS combiner 122 and the DCN combiner 126 transmit the coupled signals to the RF detector 124. The RF detector 124 may be provided as a device such as a HDD (Hyper DETector). 131 and the DCN PAM 132 check the power amount of the amplified transmission signal and periodically transmit it to the controller.

The controller is a processor for processing the RF communication of the baseband band, the front end module 100 has power level information for normal operation, and receives the power information from the RF detector 124 power amplifier 130 Figure out the power level.

That is, the controller determines whether to adjust the transmission power level by calculating a change value of the transmission power amount.

Hereinafter, the power amplifier 130 will be described with reference to FIGS. 3 to 5.

3 is a circuit diagram schematically showing a circuit implementation form of the power amplifier 130 provided in the multi-band front end module 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention.

The PCS PAM 131 and the DCN PAM 132 of the power amplifier 130 amplify each of the PCS and DCN bands so as to have a power of a size that can be transmitted, the power supply via the power supply terminal (b) Is supplied, and the control voltage is input from the control unit through the control signal terminal (c).

As the control voltage is input, the PAMs 131 and 132 adjust the amount of amplification of the transmission signal, and the PCS Tx filter 133 and the DCN Tx filter 134 are signals processed by the controller (terminals d and e, respectively). The noise component is removed, and only the frequency signal of the corresponding DCN and PCS regions is extracted and transmitted to the PCS PAM 131 and the DCN PAM 132.

Terminals provided in the reference voltage providing unit 135 will be described in detail below with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5.

4 is a circuit diagram schematically illustrating a package configuration of a reference voltage providing unit included in a multi-band front end module according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is provided in a multi-band front end module according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. A data table showing an operation state according to the input signal of the reference voltage providing unit.

Referring to FIG. 4, the reference voltage providing unit 135 is implemented as a single package element, and a circuit including two switching elements Q1 and Q2 is configured therein. As the switching elements Q1 and Q2, Transistor semiconductor devices such as Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJTs) may be used. In the embodiment of the present invention, the switching element is assumed to be provided as a BJT (transistor).

The two transistors Q1 and Q2 constituting the reference voltage providing unit 135 form a circuit with four resistors R1, R2, R3, and R4 to form a total of five terminals. The first transistor Q1 Npn BJT is provided, and the collector of the first transistor Q1 becomes the enable signal terminal V_en_DCN, en; enable for DCN.

The emitter of the first transistor Q1 becomes the DCN reference voltage output terminal (V_ref_DCN, ref; reference), and the base of the first transistor Q1 includes the fourth resistor R4 so that the reference voltage generation signal terminal ( V_reg, reg; regulator).

The emitter of the second transistor Q2, which is pnp BJT, becomes the PCS reference voltage output terminal V_ref_PCS, and the collector of the second transistor Q2 becomes the PCS enable signal terminal V_en_PCS, with the base being the first. The resistor R1 is connected to the emitter of the first transistor Q1 and the third resistor is connected to the collector of the second transistor Q2.

The base of the first transistor Q1 is connected to the collector through a second resistor R2.

When a voltage of about 2.9 V is applied to the reference voltage generation signal terminal V_reg to operate the first transistor Q1 or the second transistor Q2, a reference voltage is output through each emitter V_ref_PCS and V_ref_DCN. Can be.

The reference voltage output terminal (V_ref_PCS or V_ref_DCN) is a terminal for selectively outputting a reference voltage to operate the corresponding PAM (131 or 132) according to the frequency band, and the enable signal terminal (V_en_PCS or V_en_DCN) is to select the reference voltage A terminal for receiving an amplification control signal from a control unit (for example, may be provided as a mobile station modem (MSM)) for outputting.

As shown in FIG. 5, the enable signal terminal V_en_PCS for the PCS, the enable signal terminal V_en_DCN for the DCN, and the reference voltage generation signal terminal V_reg include a "High (about 2V to 5V)" voltage, " Low (0V) "voltage may be input, and the output signals of the two reference voltage output terminals V_ref_PCS and V_ref_DCN may be controlled as the input voltages of 3 bits are combined.

Accordingly, the control unit has 3-bit input combination information for controlling the PCS PAM 131 and the DCN PAM 132, and the enable signal stage V_en_PCS for the PCS and the enable signal for the DCN according to the combination information. The signal is applied to the terminal V_en_DCN and the reference voltage generation signal terminal V_reg.

When the amplification control signal (enable signal) is input from the control unit to the enable signal terminal V_en_DCN for DCN (in the table of FIG. 5, the enable signal terminal V_en_PCS for PCS and enable signal terminal V_en_DCN for DCN). When the voltage level of each of the reference voltage generation signal terminals V_reg is "Hi", "Hi", or "Low", the collector potential of the first transistor Q1 is increased so that the first transistor Q1 is operated. The base potential of the second transistor Q2 is also increased so that the second transistor Q2 is not operated.

Therefore, since the reference voltage is output from the DCN reference voltage output terminal V_ref_DCN, the DCN PAM 132 performs the amplification operation, and the PCS PAM 131 does not perform the amplification operation.

On the other hand, when the amplification control signal (enable signal) is input from the control unit to the enable signal terminal (V_en_PCS) for PCS (in the table of Figure 5, the enable signal terminal (V_en_PCS) for the PCS, enable signal terminal (V_en_DCN) ), When the voltage level of each of the reference voltage generation signal terminals V_reg is "Low", "Hi", or "Hi", the collector potential of the first transistor Q1 is lowered, and the second transistor Q2 is operated. The first transistor Q1 is not operated.

Therefore, since the reference voltage is output from the PCS reference voltage output terminal V_ref_PCS, the PCS PAM 131 performs the amplification operation, and the DCN PAM 132 does not perform the amplification operation.

Through such a configuration, the conventional two Vref switch operations may be implemented by the reference voltage providing unit 135 implemented as one package, and the reference voltage providing unit 135 may be configured by the PCS according to the enable signal applied from the controller. The reference voltage and the DCN voltage can be provided differently.

Accordingly, the PCS PAM 131 and the DCN PAM 132 can amplify the PCS signal and the DCN signal according to the frequency characteristics of the corresponding band according to the reference voltage.

Although the present invention has been described above with reference to the embodiments, these are only examples and are not intended to limit the present invention, and those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains may have an abnormality within the scope not departing from the essential characteristics of the present invention. It will be appreciated that various modifications and applications are not illustrated. For example, each component specifically shown in the embodiment of the present invention can be modified. And differences relating to such modifications and applications will have to be construed as being included in the scope of the invention defined in the appended claims.

According to the multi-band front end module according to the present invention, the size of the front end module can be reduced since the number of elements repeatedly used corresponding to the number of frequency bands to be processed can be reduced, such as an element providing a reference voltage for an amplification module. There is an effect that can be minimized.

In addition, according to the present invention, since the number of single components mounted on the front-end module can be reduced, the SMT process can be simplified, the production cost can be reduced, the inter-element arrangement design is easy, and the components are mounted in a limited space. In this case, since the pitch between devices can be secured, radio wave interference can be minimized.

Claims (7)

A power amplifier for amplifying the power of the multi-band signal; And A reference for processing an enable signal of a first band signal and a second band signal, and receiving a reference voltage generation power to provide a reference voltage for amplifying the first band signal and the second band signal to the power amplifier; Multi-band front end module including a voltage providing unit. The method of claim 1, And a transmission / reception filter unit for selectively transmitting and receiving the multi-band signal. The method of claim 1, A combiner coupled to the power amplifier output stage for coupling an amplified multiband signal; And And a RF detector receiving the coupled signal from the combiner to sense signal power. The method of claim 1, The first band signal is a PCS band signal and the second band signal is a DCN band signal. And the power amplifier includes two or more amplifiers for amplifying the PCS band signal and the DCN band signal. The method of claim 1, And a control unit for providing a control signal to the power amplifier and providing the enable signal to the reference voltage providing unit. The method of claim 1, And a control unit for applying the reference voltage generation power to the reference voltage providing unit. The method of claim 1, wherein the reference voltage providing unit A multi-band front end module comprising at least one switching element implemented with a transistor semiconductor.

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