A 94-GHz 16T1R Hybrid Integrated Phased Array With ±50° Scanning Range for High-Date-Rate Communication
Sidou Zheng, Xiaoyue Xia, Rong Lü, Si‐Yuan Tang, Zekun Li, Rui Zhou, Peigen Zhou, Debin Hou, Jixin Chen, Wei Hong
Abstract
This article presents a fully packaged 94-GHz 16-channel local oscillator (LO) phase-shifting transmitter (TX) and a single-channel receiver (RX). The implementation is accomplished using a hybrid integration scheme, combining high-output-power 100 nm GaAs pHEMT front-end chips and highly-integrated 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS beamformer chips. High-accuracy LO phase shifting is achieved with the utilization of a commercial SiGe-based four-channel beamformer chips, offering 7-bit phase control at 24–28 GHz. A 26-to-78 GHz tripler chain using power-enhancing and harmonic-suppression techniques, a 16-to-94 GHz bi-directional mixer, and a 94-GHz power amplifier are designed in the transmitter front-end chip based on the GaAs process. The GaAs transmitter front-ends are wire-bonded to microstrip lines and then converted to low-loss substrate integrated waveguides (SIWs), which directly feed a high-gain TEM horn antenna array. The inter-element spacing of the transmitter array is optimized to 1.6 mm ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.5 \lambda _{0}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> @94 GHz) for a wide scanning range. The 16-channel transmitter achieves a wide scanning range of ±50° and a peak effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of 43.6 dBm at 94 GHz. The GaAs receiver chip is packaged with the WR10 waveguide RF interface and connected to a horn antenna. The packaged GaAs receiver module achieves a conversion gain (CG) of 25 dB and a noise figure (NF) of 5.8 dB. Additionally, the 16T1R over-the-air (OTA) measurement supports 5G New Radio 400-MHz 64-QAM signal between 88 and 94 GHz over a 5-meter ±48° scanning range.