High Performance 60 GHz Bidirectional Phased Array Front End in SiGe BiCMOS

This paper discusses the design and implementation of a 57-66 GHz bidirectional phased-array frontend in SiGe BiCMOS for time-duplexed transceivers. The TX path includes PA, power detector, variable attenuator and phase inverter. A fine-tuned 0-180° passive phase shifter is shared with the RX path which integrates also LNA, variable attenuators and phase inverter (PI). In RX mode, the front-end achieves 22 dB, gain bandwidth of 14 GHz and 6.4 dB minimum NF in the high-gain mode. In TX mode, the front-end achieves 12 dBm saturated output power, 9.7 dBm output-referred 1dB compression point, 24 dB gain, and 8 GHz bandwidth. The phase shifters achieve full 360° phase span with 6-bit phase resolution, 2.3° rms phase error and 0.2 dB rms gain error at 60 GHz. The IC occupies area of 3.3 mm2 (including pads) and consumes 102 mW / 256 mW in RX/TX (at P1dB), respectively.