摘要 |
The present invention provides a technique for selective cancellation of the 2nd-order or 3rd-order nonlinearity of a transistor. Any nonlinearity is a function of the bias voltage of a transistor. In many cases, this function is such that, at a particular bias voltage, nonlinearity is zero. The invention provides a bias circuit that generates the optimum bias voltage for a transistor at which its selected nonlinearity is zero. Mathematically, the nonlinearity can be represented by a sum of multiple components where some components have negative sign. The components are proportional to the DC currents of the transistor at bias voltages differing by a small amount. The bias circuit includes bias transistors that are scaled versions of the main transistor. Each bias transistor generates a DC current representing one of the components. The currents are combined according to the signs of the respective components to form a DC signal proportional to the selected nonlinearity. A feedback circuit senses the DC signal and generates the bias voltages of the bias transistors that force the DC signal to be zero. One of the bias voltages is applied to the main transistor resulting in cancellation of its selected nonlinearity. The system may be readily implemented using the integrated circuit technology such that the transistors of the bias circuit are closely matched to each other and to the main transistor. The distortion cancellation effect provided by the present invention exhibits low sensitivity to variations in the transistor processing and operational temperature.
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