Design and hybrid analysis of an integrated 60 GHz active phased array transmitter using a power amplifier and 360° phase shifter

Abstract

The overall circuit designing of one path phased array transmitter consisting of 90 nm CMOS integrated power amplifier and passive phase shifter for the first three channels in 60 GHz band, is described. The performance investigation is based on a hybrid analysis and optimization. It consists of both electromagnetic (Method of Moments (MOM)) analysis for improving the accuracy of the models in this frequency and circuit analysis (Harmonic Balance (HB) - Circuit Envelope (CE)) in order to evaluating the nonlinearity behavior of the transmitter, for the passive and active parts, respectively. This procedure resulted in an acceptable performance of the average insertion gain of 13dB, peak PAE of 12.5%, P1dB of 7.5dBm, and 360° continues phase shifting for one path transmitter, which is desirable for 60 GHz phased array front ends. Furthermore the output constellation and spectrum satisfy the single carrier (SC) IEEE 802.15.3c standard.