Abstract
This article presents 16-52-GHz multiband transmit and receive phased arrays designed to support multistandard 5G communications. The 64-element arrays are built using <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">16\,\times\, 1</tex-math> </inline-formula> linear arrays, and each has four <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">4\,\times\, 1</tex-math> </inline-formula> beamformer chips on a six-layer printed circuit board (PCB) with a Wilkinson combiner/divider network and tapered slot antennas. The wideband beamformer chips are designed in a SiGe BiCMOS process and use the RF beamforming architecture. The arrays have <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\pm</tex-math> </inline-formula> <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">60^{\circ}</tex-math> </inline-formula> scanning capability in the azimuth plane and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\pm</tex-math> </inline-formula> <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">30^{\circ}</tex-math> </inline-formula> in the elevation plane with low sidelobes. The 64-element Tx array achieves an effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of 50-51.7 and 47.6-49 dBm at <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">P_{\rm sat}</tex-math> </inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">P_{1\,{\rm dB}}</tex-math> </inline-formula>, respectively, at 24.5-48 GHz. The 5G-NR-compliant waveforms with 400 MHz and up to 256-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) are transmitted with <2.98% EVM<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">_{\rm rms}</tex-math> </inline-formula> and 34-36 dBm average EIRP Single-carrier (SC) 400-MHz 64-QAM waveforms are also transmitted achieving <3% EVM<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">_{\rm rms}</tex-math> </inline-formula> with 39-40.3 dBm average EIRP and 2.4 Gb/s data rate. The 64-element Rx array achieves a system NF of 5.3-6.9 dB and a measured <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">G</tex-math> </inline-formula>/<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">T</tex-math> </inline-formula> of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">-</tex-math> </inline-formula>19.3 to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">-</tex-math> </inline-formula>14.4 dB (with T <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">_{\rm ant} = 295</tex-math> </inline-formula> K) at 20-50 GHz, and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX"><</tex-math> </inline-formula>2.6% error vector magnitude (EVM) performance when tested with 400-MHz 256-QAM 5G-NR-complaint packets. To the author's knowledge, this work achieves the highest bandwidth Tx and Rx phased array systems suitable for multiband 5G operation.