An 8-16 GHz 1-Channel Transceiver 65nm CMOS Beamformer IC

A phased-array 1-channel transceiver 65nm CMOS beamformer IC working over 8-16 GHz covering the X and Ku band which are used in radar and satellite applications is reported in this paper. Besides the low noise amplifier (LNA) and the power amplifier (PA), each path has a phase shifter (PS) and a variable gain amplifier (VGA) which provide phase and gain adjustment for beam steering angle control and beam tapering control in a typical beamforming system. The measurement results show that the phase-compensated VGA provides 15 dB of gain range in 0.25 dB step with rms gain error of 0.27 dB. The active vector modulator phase shifter has 360
^°
of phase range control, 2.8125
^°
of phase step, 3.5
^°
of rms phase error. The TX path has the S
21
of 21.3 dB, the NF of 13.8 dB, the OIP3, the saturated power P
SAT
, and OP
1dB
of 18, 11 dBm and 9 dBm while the RX path has the S
21
of 11.4 dB, NF of 6.3 dB, IP
1dB
of -7 dBm and IIP3 of 0.5 dBm. The chip consumes the DC power of 303 mW for the TX path and 103 mW for the RX path. The beamformer has a compact size of 2275x1909 µm
²
.