Patent ID: 8406718

Claim:
A method for mapping an arbitrary RF Power command into hardware control signals used to produce a commanded RF Power at a Port output for each frequency, the method comprising: providing a level shift that maps an absolute Power Command, in units of dBm, to a relative power command, in units of dBfs; providing a step attenuation state parser that computes the appropriate state for the step attenuator, and subtracts a step attenuator amplitude contribution from said relative power command, to compute an AM DAC attenuation; providing a super-attenuation function that adjusts said AM DAC attenuation command to produce desired attenuation, adding any additional attenuation as required to compensate for non-linear effects of compression, wherein said super-attenuation function is implemented as a stored data table, in octave increments of dB, for each applicable range of step attenuation, with an exact value determined by means of quadratic interpolation at run time; providing a theoretical conversion of said AM DAC attenuation command to hardware bits; and providing a frequency-dependent offset for power leveling.