Broadband Fan-out Phased Antenna Array at 28 GHz for 5G Applications

In this paper we present a 28 GHz antenna in package (AiP) design for 5G applications. The antenna array is placed in the fan-out region of the eWLB (enhanced Wafer Level Ball Grid Array) package. Separate antenna arrays are used for TX and RX, which are placed on one of the two re-distribution layers (RDL) inside the package. The heatsink required for the chip operation is also used as a horn antenna to improve the design performance. The 4-element dipole array has the impedance bandwidth of almost 6 GHz (24 GHz-30 GHz) and gives a maximum gain of 9.5 dBi. Beam-steering in ± 35 deg is achieved in the azimuthal plane (H-plane) by providing different phases to the dipoles through the chip.