A Highly Integrated 5G mm-Wave Phased Array System at N257/N261 bands with 54dBm Linear EIRP

This article presents a dual-polarized TRX 5G64-element phased array system at N257/N261 band with the state-of-the-art linear EIRP power level and enhanced cross-polarization across frequency band. The panel design is optimized for extended scan range and LO-leakage and image-rejection filters are implemented on-board for higher spectrum fidelity. The design is based on 16 silicon-germanium(SiGe) beamformers, 2 up/down converters, a wideband synthesizer with dual outputs and a jitter attenuator from Renesas Electronics to include the complete signal chain from intermediate frequency (IF) to millimeter-wave (mm-wave) as well as the local oscillator(LO). All the components are assembled directly on a 12-layer low-cost printed circuit board(PCB). The measured radiation pattern can scan up to ±60° with the peak TX OPldB of 59.5 dBm and the peak RX gain of 54.5 dB. The array provides 51.2 and 54.0 dBm EIRP at 3% EVM with a 400 MHz CP-OFDM signal (PAPR =11.83dB) utilizing a novel technique called Dynamic Array Power Technology (DAP™) where the output power is scaled based on different voltage supplies for the power amplifiers inside the beamformers. This array system demonstrates the state-of-the-art RF performance for 5GNR at N257/N261 bands. It presents a high performance demonstration unit for mmW small cell and base stations.