An amplifier circuit includes a power amplifier biased for saturated mode
operation, and a controllable current source to provide supply current to
the power amplifier. The controllable current source effects desired
amplitude modulation of the output signal from the power amplifier by
modulating the supply current it provides responsive to an amplitude
information signal. In one or more embodiments, the current source
includes a circuit that is configured to adjust one or more transmitter
operating parameters responsive to detecting changes in the effective DC
resistance of the power amplifier. For example, the circuit may generate
a compensation signal that reduces the effective DC resistance responsive
to detecting that the effective DC resistance has undesirably increased.
By way of non-limiting examples, such compensation may be effected by
changing a current mirror, an amplifier-to-antenna impedance matching, an
amplifier bias or device size, or imposing some form of transmit signal
back-off.