Patent ID: 7184490

Claim:
A low power transmitter comprises: a signal generator operably coupled to generate a signal to represent data based on a first aspect of a transmission protocol, wherein the signal generator includes: a symbol generator operably coupled to produce symbols that represent the data in a frequency domain based on the first aspect of the transmission protocol; a frequency-to-time conversion module operably coupled to convert the symbols into a time domain signal; and a filtering module operably coupled to filter the time domain signal to produce the signal, wherein the transmission protocol includes at least one of: orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), binary phase shift keying (BPSK), quadrature shift keying (QPSK), quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), and discrete multi-tone (DMT); a signal partitioning module operably coupled to partition the signal based on peak-to-average ratio of the signal to produce a plurality of signal partitions, wherein the signal partitioning module includes: a signal slicing module operably coupled to produce the plurality of signal partitions based on magnitude of the signal, wherein the signal slicing module slices the signal at a first level to produce a first signal partition of the plurality of signal partitions, and wherein the signal slicing module slices the signal between the first level and a second level to produce a second signal partition of the plurality of signal partitions; a signal processing module operably coupled to process each of the plurality of signal partitions based on a second aspect of the transmission protocol to produce a plurality of processed signal partitions, wherein the signal processing module includes: a first digital to analog converter operably coupled to convert the first signal partition into a first analog signal; a second digital to analog converter operably coupled to convert the second signal partition into a second analog signal; a first RF up-conversion section operably coupled to convert the first analog signal into a first RF signal; and a second RF up-conversion section operably coupled to convert the second analog signal into a second RF signal; a plurality of amplifiers, wherein each of the plurality of the amplifiers amplifies a corresponding one of the plurality of processed signal partitions to produce a plurality of amplified signal partitions; and a transmitting module operably coupled to transmit the plurality of amplified signal partitions as a composite amplified signal.