A Ka-Band Fully Integrated CMOS 1T3R Transceiver for Monopulse Radar Applications

Emerging low-altitude airspace economy has driven the development of high-resolution wireless sensors. Dedicated for the Ka-band monopulse radar applications, the design of a highly integrated 1T3R transceiver is detailed in this brief. The heterodyne transceiver incorporates full radio frequency (RF), intermediate frequency (IF) and local oscillator (LO) building blocks, supporting complete monopulse detection in azimuth and elevation. The calibration mode is introduced to enable system-level instant calibrations for enhanced detection accuracy. Dual injection style of the LO source facilitates the cascade of multiple chips for large-scale sensing systems. Fabricated in 65-nm CMOS technology and packaged with the wafer-level chip-scale packaging, the transceiver achieves the peak RX/TX gain of 18.4/33.2 dB across 32–36 GHz, with a minimum RX NF of 5.7 dB and peak saturated TX power of 15.6 dBm. The high integration level and flexible configuration of the transceiver make it suitable for Ka-band monopulse radar applications.