A 23–40-GHz Phased-Array Receiver Using 14-Bit Phase-Gain Manager and Wideband Noise-Canceling LNA

Abstract

This article presents a 23–40-GHz phased-array receiver (RX) capable of reconfiguring to achieve fine phase step and high gain range. Such phased-array RX consists of a 14-bit phase-gain manager and a wideband noise-canceling low-noise amplifier (NCLNA). The proposed phase-gain manager includes two 7-bit variable gain amplifiers (VGAs) in radio-frequency (RF) domain, two pairs of mixers, and two variable gain sign- map (VGSM) circuits in intermediate-frequency (IF) domain. The proposed phased-array RX can not only provide a maximum 14-bit phase-tuning operation and >35-dB gain variation range but also achieve an improved calibration-free image rejection ratio (IRR) by introducing the dual-mode image rejection oper- ation. Based on the aforementioned structure, a four-element phased-array RX is implemented and fabricated in a 40-nm CMOS technology. The whole circuit size is 2.2 × 1.3 mm, while consuming 52 mW per element. The measured result shows a state-of-the-art minimal noise figure (NF) of 3.8 dB, which supports 3 Gb/s, 64-QAM and 2.4 Gb/s, 256-QAM modulation signal.