Single-Ended and Differential Ka-Band BiCMOS Phased Array Front-Ends

摘要

Single-ended and differential phased array front-ends are developed for Ka-band applications using a 0.12 $mu{hbox{m}}$ SiGe BiCMOS process. The phase shifters are based on CMOS switched delay networks and have 22.5$^{circ} $ phase resolution and ${≪ }hbox{4}^{circ} $ rms phase error at 35 GHz, and can handle $+hbox{10} ~hbox{dBm}$ of RF power $(P_{rm 1dB})$ with a 3rd order intermodulation intercept point (IIP3) of $+hbox{21} ~hbox{dBm}$. For the single-ended design, a SiGe low noise amplifier is placed before the CMOS phase shifter, and the LNA/phase shifter results in $hbox{11}pmhbox{1.5} ~{hbox{dB}}$ gain and ${≪}, hbox{3.4}~{hbox{dB}}$ of noise figure (NF), for a total power consumption of only 11 mW. For the differential front-end, a variable gain LNA is also developed and shows 9-20 dB gain and ${≪}, hbox{1}^{circ} $ rms phase imbalance between the eight different gain states. The differential variable gain LNA/phase shifter consumes 33 mW, and results in $hbox{10}pm hbox{1.3} ~{hbox{dB}}$ gain and 3.8 dB of NF. The gain variation is reduced to $hbox{9.1}pm hbox{0.45} ~{hbox{dB}}$ with the variable gain function applied. The single-ended and differential front-ends occupy a small chip a--rea