A 28-GHz CMOS Phased-Array Transceiver Based on LO Phase-Shifting Architecture With Gain Invariant Phase Tuning for 5G New Radio

This paper presents a 28-GHz CMOS four-element phased-array transceiver chip for the fifth-generation mobile network (5G) new radio (NR). The proposed transceiver is based on the local-oscillator (LO) phase-shifting architecture, and it achieves quasi-continuous phase tuning with less than 0.2-dB radio frequency (RF) gain variation and 0.3 degrees phase error. Accurate beam control with suppressed sidelobe level during beam steering could be supported by this work. At 28 GHz, a single-element transmitter-mode output P-1dg of 15.7 clBm and a receiver-mode noise figure (NF) of 4.1 dB are achieved. The eight-element transceiver modules developed in this work are capable of scanning the beam from -50 degrees to +50 degrees with less than 9-dB sidelobe level. A saturated equivalent isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of 39.8 clBm is achieved at 0 degrees scan. In a 5-m over the -air measurement, the proposed module demonstrates the first 512 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellation in the 28-GHz band. A data stream of 6.4 Gb/s in 256-QAM could be supported within a beam angle of +/- 50 degrees. The achieved maximum data rate is 15 Gb/s in 64-QAM. The proposed transceiver chip consumes L2 NV/chip in transmitter mode and 0.59 %V/chip in receiver mode.