학술논문

24.2 A Scalable 134-to-141GHz 16-Element CMOS 2D λ/2-Spaced Phased Array
Document Type
Conference
Source
2024 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), 2024 IEEE International. 67:414-416 Feb, 2024
Subject
Bioengineering
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Photonics and Electrooptics
Robotics and Control Systems
Phased arrays
Radio frequency
Power measurement
Transmitters
Wireless networks
Scalability
System-on-chip
Language
ISSN
2376-8606
Abstract
Utilizing the spectrum >100 GHz will remarkably enhance the capacity of future 5G/6G wireless access networks. However, the antenna effective aperture is proportional to $\lambda^{2} (\lambda$: carrier wavelength). Then, millimeter-wave, large-scale CMOS phased-arrays are indispensable to overcome the associated 30-to-40dB higher path loss, compared with sub-6GHz devices. To this end, several challenges remain to be addressed: 1) Scalability: a physically resizable phased array with $10 ^{1}$-to-$10 ^{3}$ elements is preferred over a monolithically integrated large array [1]; 2) Array spacing $d=\lambda /2$ [2, 3], instead of $d \gt \lambda /2$ [1, 4], reduces the sidelobes and the adjacent user interference; 3) DC-to-RF efficiency enhancement; 4) Cost reduction: avoiding advanced processes and expensive packaging [1, 2, 4, 5]. In this paper, a 134-to-141GHz, 16-element, 2D $\lambda /2$-spaced phased-array transmitter in a 65nm CMOS process is demonstrated. A scalable IF beamforming scheme with traveling-wave LO/IF distribution is proposed for flexible 2D array expansion. Next, a D-band transmitter per channel is built. It adopts a subsampling tripler to address the LO degradation and enhance the DC efficiency. In addition, a broadband, triple resonance on-chip antenna with asymmetric H-shape patch on quartz superstrate reduces the antenna area by 42%, which enables the $\lambda /2$ spacing. At 138GHz, the measured $4 \times 4$ 2D $\lambda /2-$spaced phased array presents a peak equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) of 26dBm with 1dBm RF output power per channel, and a +/−40° beam steering in both directions. A line-of-sight (LoS) transmission of 14Gbit/s, 16-QAM signal over 10m distance has been demonstrated with an error-vector-magnitude (EVM) of 9.8%.