A fully-integrated Ka-band 4TX/4RX phased-array transceiver IC in 65nm CMOS

This paper presents a fully-integrated Ka-band 4RX/4TX phased-array transceiver IC. The four transceiver channels are synchronized by an I/Q standing wave oscillator (SWO). Their signal phases are shifted by hybrid analog IF and LO phase interpolators, and can be controlled digitally and independently. The SWO further composes an on-chip PLL, and is locked to a 1.09 GHz off-chip global reference to scale to a large array at board level. Each receiver channel achieves 66 dB maximum conversion gain and 4.4 dB minimum noise figure. Each transmitter channel achieves 18 dBm maximum output power. The chip is mounted on a high-frequency laminate, inside which embedded cables connect its RF pads to Vivaldi antennas also inside the same PCB. With the PCB, each channel achieves 360° phase shifting capability under a maximum calibrated 3.7° phase errors. The PCB module presents successful beam steering with 23° measured four-channel 3-dB beamwidth. This chip consumes a peak 5 W power at transmit mode, and is fabricated in TSMC 65nm CMOS technology with a 4 × 2.5 mm2 chip area.