A CMOS 4-Element Ku-Band Phased-Array Transceiver

ZHANG Xiaoning; YU Yiming; ZHAO Chenxi; LIU Huihua; WU Yunqiu; KANG Kai

doi:10.1049/cje.2021.00.372

Volume 31 Issue 6

Nov. 2022

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ZHANG Xiaoning, YU Yiming, ZHAO Chenxi, et al., “A CMOS 4-Element Ku-Band Phased-Array Transceiver,” Chinese Journal of Electronics, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 1092-1105, 2022, doi: 10.1049/cje.2021.00.372

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ZHANG Xiaoning, YU Yiming, ZHAO Chenxi, et al., “A CMOS 4-Element Ku-Band Phased-Array Transceiver,” Chinese Journal of Electronics, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 1092-1105, 2022, doi: 10.1049/cje.2021.00.372

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A CMOS 4-Element Ku-Band Phased-Array Transceiver

doi: 10.1049/cje.2021.00.372

1.
School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China

Funds: This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2020YFB1805003) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61931007, 62171102, 62025106)

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Author Bio:
Xiaoning ZHANG received the B.S. degree from the School of Electronic Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China, in 2015, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree. His research interests include CMOS millimeter-wave phased arrays and millimeter-wave package technology

Yiming YU received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 2012 and 2017, respectively. He is currently with UESTC as a lecturer. His research interests include modeling of on-chip devices, CMOS RF and mm-Wave integrated circuits and phased array transceiver design

Chenxi ZHAO received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, South Korea, in 2014. From 2008 to 2009, he worked with the 10th Institute of China Electronic and Technological Group, Chengdu. Since 2014, he has been a Lecturer with the School of Electronic Engineering, UESTC. His major research interests include RF CMOS device modeling, CMOS RF transceivers, and power amplifier design for millimeter-wave application

Huihua LIU received the B.S. degree in electrical and mechanical engineering from China University of Petroleum, Beijing, China, in 1999, the M.S degree in electrical engineering from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China, in 2006. His major research interests include digital IC design, high speed clock and data recovery, and A/D, D/A converter

Yunqiu WU received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 2004 and 2009, respectively. From 2009 to 2012, she worked as a Lecturer with UESTC, and she was involved with the research on microwave parameter measurement of thin-film materials. From 2012 to 2013, she worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the Technique University of Denmark (DTU), Kongens Lyngby, Denmark, where she studied on the design and parameter extraction of left-hand materials. She is currently working as an Associate Professor with UESTC. Her current research interests include characterizing the microwave parameters of materials and IC device de-embedding and modeling

Kai KANG (corresponding author) received the B.E. degree from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China, in 2002, and the joint Ph.D. degree from the National University of Singapore, Singapore, and Ecole Supérieure D’électricité, Gifsur-Yvette, France, in 2008. From 2006 to 2011, he was successively as a Senior Research Engineer with the Institute of Microelectronics, A∗STAR, Singapore, as an Adjunct Assistant Professor, with the National University of Singapore, and a Principle Engineer with Global Foundries, Singapore, respectively. Since June 2011, he has been a Professor with the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu¸ China. He has authored or coauthored over 200 international referred journal and conference articles. His research interests are RF and RF and millimeter wave integrated circuits design and modeling of on-chip devices. Dr. Kang was a co-recipient of several best paper awards or best student paper awards in IEEE conference including Silkroad Award in ISSCC 2018. He serves as the Chapter Chair of IEEE Solid State Circuits Society Chengdu Chapter.(Email: kangkai@uestc.edu.cn)
Received Date: 2021-10-20
Accepted Date: 2022-01-25

Available Online: 2022-04-21

Publish Date: 2022-11-05

Abstract

Abstract

This paper presents a Ku-Band fully differential 4-element phased-array transceiver using a standard 180-nm CMOS process. Each transceiver is integrated with a 5-bit phase shifter and 4-bit attenuator for high-resolution radiation manipulation. The front-end system adopts time-division mode, and hence two low-loss T/R switches are included in each channel. At room temperature, the measured root-mean-square (RMS) phase error is less than 5.5°. Furthermore, the temperature influence on passive switched phase shifters is analyzed. Meanwhile, an extra phase-shifting cell is developed to calibrate phase error varying with the operating temperatures. With the calibration, the RMS phase error is reduced by 7° at −45 ℃, and 5.4° at 85 ℃. The RMS amplitude error is less than 0.92 dB at 15−18 GHz. In the RX mode, the tested gain is 9.6±1.1 dB at 16.5 GHz with a noise figure of 10.9 dB, and the input P_1dB is −15 dBm, while the single-channel’s gain and output P_1dB in the TX mode are 11.3±0.4 dB and 9.4 dBm at 16.1 GHz, respectively. The whole chip occupies an area of 5×4.2 mm² and the measured isolation between each two adjacent channels is lower than −23.1 dB.
- Attenuator,
- CMOS,
- Ku-band,
- Phased-array,
- Phase shifter,
- Transceiver,
- Temperature effect

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References

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