W-band CMOS beamforming ICs and integrated phased-array antennas with 20+ Gb/s data rates

This article presents the design and implementation of W-band transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) phased-array antennas, which leverage CMOS and printed circuit board (PCB) technologies to integrate the phased-array antennas with eight-channel beamforming ICs. The beamforming IC applies the variable gain amplifier (VGA) with fractional bits and the vector-modulated variable gain phase shifter (VGPS) for wide range and high precision of gain and phase shifting, providing moderate power gain. The phased-array board consists of 384 TX and 384 RX antenna elements, along with 48 TX and 48 RX beamforming ICs. It also incorporates Wilkinson power dividers/combiners, a power management system, and a beamforming control module, all integrated into a cost-effective multi-layer PCB. Fabricated in 65-nm bulk CMOS, the IC achieves 3° RMS phase error for phase shifting and 0.5 dB RMS gain error for gain shifting, ensuring high precision of antenna pointing. The over-the-air (OTA) measurement of the proposed W-band phased-array antennas achieves a 64-QAM constellation with a symbol rate of 3.5 GS/s, resulting in raw data rates of 21 Gb/s.