A Highly Linear 28GHz 16-Element Phased-Array Receiver with Wide Gain Control for 5G NR Application

This paper presents a 28GHz 16-element phased-array receiver in a 28nm bulk RF CMOS process targeting 5G NR application. The receiver implements a high-gain low-NF LNA, a linearity enhanced RF amplifier with post-distortion, and RF/IF step attenuators for a wide gain range and fine gain step control. Thereby, the presented receiver demonstrated a system NF of 3.5dB, a gain control range of 50dB (1dB step), and an EVM of - 37.7/-43.1dB with 5G NR 800/100MHz signals while consuming a low power of 0.54W (equivalent to 33.5mW per channel).