Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The development of energy-efficient, multi-standard, and multi-protocol wireless radio systems is critical to support the deployment of ubiquitous, cognitive and green wireless networks. To achieve this, it will be necessary to develop novel radio transmitters, specifically radio frequency power amplifiers (PAs), which maintain high energy-efficiency and linearity across multiple frequency bands, especially when driven with modulated signals characterized by highly varying envelopes. The proposed research aims to overcome the various bandwidth limitations of current energy-efficient Doherty and Drain modulation based PAs by not only developing new circuit topologies, but by examining semiconductors device enhancements. Both of these areas are keys to creating the integrated backbone required to enable improvements beyond what has been possible with traditional approaches; traditionally clear boundaries have existed between the two levels of abstractions. This project will be supported by two industrial partners Freescale Semiconductors and Ericsson Canada, each of which are interested in, and will be contributing to, complementary aspects of the project, namely semiconductors devices and radio systems respectively. The outcomes of the project will serve the future market needs of both organizations, while additionally benefiting Canada through technology transfer and the development of highly qualified personnel.