A 24-GHz Automotive Radar Transmitter with Digital Beam Steering in 130-nm CMOS

In this paper simulations of a 130-nm CMOS 24-GHz automotive radar transmitter with digital beam steering is presented. The beam steering is performed by multiple PAs connected to separate antenna elements. The output phases of the PAs are individually controllable through 360deg by binary weighting of quadrature phases. The circuit contains 18 PAs, each delivering 0 dBm to the antenna, resulting in a combined output power of 13 dBm. The 18 element antenna array will at 24 GHz be 11 cm, and have a directivity of 12 dB and a half power beam width of 5 degrees