All silicon mmW planar active antennas: The convergence of technology, applications, and architecture

Planar electronic steerable active antennas based on all-silicon solutions are rapidly being deployed in a wide range of millimeter wave applications including 5G communications infrastructure, satellite communications terminals, and radar systems. For over 50 years, advancements in Si devices have followed Moore's Law allowing today's Silicon to revolutionize applications where previously only III-V materials were used. Silicon is now fully capable of providing high performance devices that work at mmwave frequencies. This enables low cost planar phased arrays to be deployed for volume commercial applications across many applications. This paper focuses on some of those applications, shows that the architectures being deployed across multiple markets are similar in nature, and provides examples of industry leading Si based IC and array solutions that enable these active antennas.