A Fully Integrated 384-Element, 16-Tile, W -Band Phased Array With Self-Alignment and Self-Test

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits Vol. 54; no. 9; pp. 2419 - 2434
• Main Authors: Shahramian, Shahriar, Holyoak, Michael J., Singh, Amit, Baeyens, Yves
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.09.2019
• Subjects: 90 GHz; <italic xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">W -band; beamforming; Built-in self-test; coherent beam; Couplers; Detectors; flip-chip; fully integrated; gigabit wireless link; high effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP); integrated antenna; large-scale array; millimeter-wave (mm-wave); MIMO; Monitoring; multi-beam; phase shifter; phase-locked loop (PLL); phased array; Phased arrays; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency integrated circuits; self-aligned; self-test; tile; vector modulator
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2019.2928694

This paper describes the design and implementation of a scalable <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">W </tex-math></inline-formula>-band phased-array system, with built-in self-alignment and self-test, based on an RFIC transceiver chipset manufactured in the TowerJazz 0.18-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu \text{m} </tex-math></inline-formula> SiGe BiCMOS technology with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">f_{T}/f_{\text {MAX}} </tex-math></inline-formula> of 240/270 GHz. The RFIC integrates 24 phase-shifter elements (16TX/8RX or 8TX/16RX) as well as direct up- and down-converters, phase-locked loop with prime-ratio frequency multiplier, analog baseband, beam lookup memory, and diagnostic circuits for performance monitoring. Two organic printed circuit board (PCB) interposers with integrated antenna sub-arrays are designed and co-assembled with the RFIC chipsets to produce a scalable phased-array tile. Tiles are phase-aligned to one another through a daisy-chained local oscillator (LO) synchronization signal. Statistical analysis of the effects of LO misalignment between tiles on beam patterns is presented. Sixteen tiles are combined onto a carrier PCB to create a 384-element (256TX/128RX) phased-array system. A maximum saturated effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of 60 dBm (1 kW) is measured at boresight for the 256 transmit elements. Wireless links operating at 90.7 GHz using a 16-QAM constellation at a reduced EIRP of 52 dBm produced data rates beyond 10 Gb/s for an equivalent link distance in excess of 250 m.