[en] A new expression is proposed to analyze the linearization effectiveness of derivative superposition (DS) with large and small signal inputs, and different optimization methods of DS are found for different input magnitudes. A power amplifier driver (PAD) with large-signal optimized DS was implemented in 0.13 μm technology within a reconfigurable RF transmitter. The PAD is compatible with the GSM band at 900 MHz and the WCDMA band at 1.95 GHz, and it has a gain range of 44 dB with a step of 2 dB. Measurement results show that the overall OIP3 of the transmitter is better than 19 dBm, and the output referred 1-dB compression point is better than 7.5 dBm. (semiconductor integrated circuits)