Delta-Sigma Modulator-Embedded Digital Predistortion for 5G Transmitter Linearization

This article presents two novel digital predistortion (DPD) based architectures that jointly mitigate the inphase/quadrature (IQ) modulator impairments and the power amplifier (PA) nonlinear distortion in wireless transmitters. The proposed architectures are multibit cartesian and complex delta-sigma modulator-based joint DPDs, called CDSM-JDPD and CXDSM-JDPD, respectively, which enable using low-cost digital-to-analog converters (DACs) while offering versatile linearization capabilities to combat the coexisting distortions of the PA and the IQ modulator. The proposed approach alleviates the need for reverse modeling and implementation of extra hardware to separately deal with frequency-dependent IQ impairments. Moreover, the CXDSM-JDPD enhances the linearization performance and relaxes the high oversampling ratio (OSR) requirement by quantizing the signal more efficiently. Furthermore, the presented concepts inherently support the use of low-resolution DACs, which offers a tremendous advantage in designing and implementing low-cost and energy-efficient radio transmitters. Extensive set of hardware-in-the-loop RF verification measurements with a commercial PA are provided, including two timely 5G New Radio (NR) scenarios at NR bands n3 and n78, while covering channel bandwidths up to 100 MHz and varying the OSR and the DAC bit resolution. The obtained results demonstrate the excellent linearization capabilities of the proposed solutions and their superiority compared to other DSM-based DPD approaches.