DSP assisted and on demand RF and analog domain processing for low power wireless transceivers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10813046-B2
Application number	US-201815933494-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 23, 2018
Priority date	Sep 26, 2014
Publication date	Oct 20, 2020
Grant date	Oct 20, 2020

Abstract

A wireless user equipment (UE) device may include a receiver and transmitter. The UE device may dynamically vary the fidelity requirements imposed on the analog signal processing performed by the receiver and/or the transmitter in response factors such as: amount of signal interference (e.g., out-of-band signal power); modulation and coding scheme; number of spatial streams; extent of transmitter leakage; and size and/or frequency location of resources allocated to the UE device. Thus, the UE device may consume less power on average than a UE device that is designed to satisfy fixed fidelity requirements associated with a worst case reception scenario and/or a worst case transmission scenario.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for operating a wireless receiver, the method comprising:
receiving an RF signal;
operating on the RF signal with one or more analog circuits to obtain an analog intermediate signal, wherein the one or more analog circuits comprise an analog filter;
sampling the analog intermediate signal using an analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) circuit to obtain a digital signal;
analyzing the RF signal, the analog intermediate signal, and the digital signal to determine a level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy, wherein the level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy comprises an allowed amount of distortion; and
modifying a configuration of the wireless receiver based on the determined level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy, wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver comprises dynamically adjusting an extent of distortion of the analog filter based on the determined level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said analyzing and modifying are performed dynamically while the RF signal is being received.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the RF signal includes a first signal transmitted by a serving base station and one or more interfering signals, wherein the first signal includes information for reception by the wireless receiver.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver comprises activating an analog pre-compensation circuit configured to remove transmitter leakage from the RF signal prior to the one or more analog circuits.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said analyzing includes analyzing a wireless spectrum of the RF signal, wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver comprises dynamically adjusting an extent of distortion of the analog filter based on results of said analyzing the wireless spectrum.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein said analyzing comprises determining interference power in the RF signal and bandwidth of a receive signal in the RF signal, wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver is based on (a) the determined interference power, (b) the determined bandwidth and (c) the determined level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver comprises adjusting one or more performance parameters of the ADC circuit.

8. An apparatus for operating a wireless transmitter, the apparatus comprising a processor configured to cause the wireless transmitter to:
determine a current modulation and coding scheme;
generate a digital signal according to the current modulation and coding scheme;
operate on the digital signal to pre-correct for distortions associated with analog circuitry of the wireless transmitter;
after said operating on the digital signal, convert the digital signal to an analog intermediate signal using a digital-to-analog conversion (DAC) circuit;
generate an RF signal based on the analog intermediate signal using one or more analog circuits;
determine a second constraint on out-of-band (OOB) emissions, wherein the second constraint is based on the current modulation and coding scheme; and
adjust a level of processing fidelity, wherein said adjusting the level of processing fidelity is performed in order to achieve the second constraint on OOB emissions.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the one or more analog circuits comprises an analog filter, wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless transmitter to adjust the analog filter.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wireless transmitter to:
determine a first constraint on an error vector magnitude (EVM), wherein EVM is determined based on decoding a control signal; and
adjust the level of processing fidelity according to the first constraint.

11. A wireless receiver, comprising:
a radio; and
a processor operably coupled to the radio and configured to cause the wireless receiver to:
receive an RF signal;
operate on the RF signal with one or more analog circuits to obtain an analog intermediate signal, wherein the one or more analog circuits comprise an analog filter;
sample the analog intermediate signal using an analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) circuit to obtain a digital signal;
analyze the RF signal, the analog intermediate signal, and the digital signal to determine a level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy, wherein the level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy comprises an allowed amount of distortion; and
modify a configuration of the wireless receiver based on the determined level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy, wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver comprises dynamically adjusting an extent of distortion of the analog filter based on the determined level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy.

12. The wireless receiver of claim 11 , wherein said analyzing and modifying are performed dynamically while the RF signal is being received.

13. The wireless receiver of claim 11 , wherein the RF signal includes a first signal transmitted by a serving base station and one or more interfering signals, wherein the first signal includes information for reception by the wireless receiver.

14. The wireless receiver of claim 11 , wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver comprises activating an analog pre-compensation circuit configured to remove transmitter leakage from the RF signal prior to the one or more analog circuits.

15. The wireless receiver of claim 11 , wherein said analyzing includes analyzing a wireless spectrum of the RF signal, wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver comprises dynamically adjusting an extent of distortion of the analog filter based on results of said analyzing the wireless spectrum.

16. The wireless receiver of claim 11 , wherein said analyzing comprises determining interference power in the RF signal and bandwidth of a receive signal in the RF signal, wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver is based on (a) the determined interference power, (b) the determined bandwidth and (c) the determined level of signal processing fidelity that the wireless receiver should satisfy.

17. The wireless receiver of claim 11 , wherein said modifying the configuration of the wireless receiver comprises adjusting one or more performance parameters of the ADC circuit.

18. The wireless receiver of claim 11 , wherein the wireless receiver operates according to LTE.

19. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein to pre-correct for distortions associated with the analog circuitry of the wireless transmitter, the processor is further configured to cause the wireless transmitter to:
pre-correct the digital signal for phase noise to be introduced by the analog circuitry of the wireless transmitter.

20. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein to pre-correct for distortions associated with the analog circuitry of the wireless transmitter, the processor is further configured to cause the wireless transmitter to:
pre-correct the digital signal for transmitter nonlinearity distortion to

Assignees

• Apple Inc
• Appe Inc

Inventors

• Sarrigeorgidis Konstantinos
• Tabet Tarik
• Elsayed Moustafa M

Classifications

• H04W52/0209 Primary

  in terminal devices · CPC title

• H04B1/0028

  wherein the AD/DA conversion occurs at baseband stage · CPC title

• H04B1/10

  Means associated with receiver for limiting or suppressing noise or interference · CPC title

• Y02D30/70

  in wireless communication networks · CPC title

• H04B1/0475

  with means for limiting noise, interference or distortion (H04B1/0483 takes precedence) · CPC title