A 39-GHz 64-Element Phased-Array Transceiver With Built-In Phase and Amplitude Calibrations for Large-Array 5G NR in 65-nm CMOS

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits Vol. 55; no. 5; p. 1
• Main Authors: Wang, Yun, Wu, Rui, Pang, Jian, You, Dongwon, Fadila, Ashbir Aviat, Saengchan, Rattanan, Fu, Xi, Matsumoto, Daiki, Nakamura, Takeshi, Kubozoe, Ryo, Kawabuchi, Masaru, Liu, Bangan, Zhang, Haosheng, Qiu, Junjun, Liu, Hanli, Oshima, Naoki, Motoi, Keiichi, Hori, Shinichi, Kunihiro, Kazuaki, Kaneko, Tomoya, Shirane, Atsushi, Okada, Kenichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.05.2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 39 GHz; 5G cellular network; 5G mobile communication; 5G new radio (5G NR); Amplitudes; Antenna arrays; Architecture; Array signal processing; Arrays; Calibration; Chips (electronics); CMOS; Construction; Converters; fifth generation (5G); large array; LO feedthrough (LOFT); local-oscillator (LO) phase shifting; Millimeter wave technology; millimeter-wave; patch antenna; phase calibration; Phase error; phase quantization; phase shifter; phased-array; power amplifier (PA); Power consumption; Quadrature amplitude modulation; Radio frequency; sliding IF; transceiver; Transceivers; TRX switch
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2020.2980509

This article presents the first 39-GHz phased-array transceiver (TRX) chipset for fifth-generation new radio (5G NR). The proposed transceiver chipset consists of 4 sub-array TRX elements with local-oscillator (LO) phase-shifting architecture and built-in calibration on phase and amplitude. The calibration scheme is proposed to alleviate phase and amplitude mismatch between each sub-array TRX element, especially for a large-array transceiver system in the base station (BS). Based on LO phase-shifting architecture, the transceiver has a 0.04-dB maximum gain variation over the 360° full tuning range, allowing constant-gain characteristic during phase calibration. A phase-to-digital converter (PDC) and a high-resolution phase-detection mechanism are proposed for highly accurate phase calibration. The built-in calibration has a measured accuracy of 0.08° rms phase error and 0.01-dB rms amplitude error. Moreover, a pseudo-single-balanced mixer is proposed for LO-feedthrough (LOFT) cancellation and sub-array TRX LO-to-LO isolation. The transceiver is fabricated in standard 65-nm CMOS technology with flip-chip packaging. The 8TX-8RX phased-array transceiver module 1-m OTA measurement supports 5G NR 400-MHz 256-QAM OFDMA modulation with -30.0-dB EVM. The 64-element transceiver has a EIRPMAX of 53 dBm. The four-element chip consumes a power of 1.5 W in the TX mode and 0.5 W in the RX mode.