A Packaged 90-to-96GHz 16-Element Phased Array with 18.8/15.8dBm Psat/OP1dB, 14.8% TX PAE in 65nm CMOS Process and +51dBm Array EIRP

Abstract

This work presents a packaged 90-to-96GHz 16-Element transceiver phased array. It is constructed using 4-channel silicon beamformers in 65nm CMOS process, external power amplifiers (PAs) and low noise amplifiers in 100nm GaN process as well as Vivaldi antennas on a tsm-ds3 based printed circuit board (PCB). A transformer-and coupled-line-based 8-to-1 power combine technique is proposed in the silicon beamformer to achieve a measured Psat of +18.8dBm with an OP1dB of +15.8dBm and a peak PAE of 14.8% in CMOS. With external GaN PAs, the 16-Element transceiver phased array demonstrates a measured 26° 3-dB beamwidth, +51dBm peak EIRP at Psat and the ability to scan to ±30° in all planes.