Patent attributes
A ultra-compact coupler designed to sample the actual output power of a power amplifier and which is “VSWR insensitive”, such that reflected power is essentially not coupled to a detector circuit and only forward power is detected and processed. In a first embodiment, a coupler is situated between the final amplifier stage of a power amplifier and an output impedance matching network, and is specially configured for operation in a low impedance environment in conjunction with a detector circuit, thereby substantially reducing the areal size of the coupler. In a second embodiment, a coupler is integrated within an output impedance matching network coupled to the final amplifier stage of a power amplifier so as to share an inductor between the coupler and the output impedance matching network, thereby further substantially reducing the areal size of the coupler.