Electrical engineering

Physics

Chip

Transistor

Wideband

CMOS

Beamforming

Insertion loss

Noise figure

Phase shift module

Video Graphics Array

Operational amplifier

Engineering

Voltage

Amplifier

Antenna (radio)

Electronic engineering

True time delay

Computer science

BiCMOS

Phased array

Variable-gain amplifier

IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques

This work presents a 15&#x2013;57 GHz multiband/ multistandard phased-array architecture for the fifth-generation (5G) new radio (NR) frequency range 2 (FR2) bands. An eight-element phased-array receive module is demonstrated based on two four-channel wideband beamformer chips designed in the SiGe BiCMOS process and flipped on a low-cost printed circuit board. The SiGe Rx chip employs RF beamforming and is designed to interface to a wideband differential Vivaldi antenna array. Each channel consists of a low-noise amplifier (LNA), active phase shifter with 5-bit resolution, variable gain amplifier (VGA), and differential-to-single-ended stage. The four channels are combined using a wideband two-stage on-chip Wilkinson network. The beamformer has a peak electronic gain of 24&#x2013;25 dB and a 4.7&#x2013;6.2 dB noise figure (NF) with a &#x2212;29 to &#x2212;24 dBm input <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$P_{\boldsymbol {1\,dB}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> at 20&#x2013;40 GHz. The eight-element phased-array module also achieved ultra-wideband frequency response with flat gain and low-system NF. The phased array scans &#x00B1;55&#x00B0; with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ &lt; -12$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-dB sidelobes demonstrating multiband operation. A 1.2-m over-the-air (OTA) link measurement using the eight-element Rx module supports 400-MHz 256-QAM OFDMA modulation with &#x003C; 2.76&#x0025; error vector magnitude (EVM) at multiple 5G NR FR2 bands. To the author&#x2019;s knowledge, this work achieves the widest bandwidth phased array enabling the construction of multistandard systems.

A Multiband/Multistandard 15–57 GHz Receive Phased-Array Module Based on 4 × 1 Beamformer IC and Supporting 5G NR FR2 Operation