A Scalable 256-Elements E-Band Phased-Array Transceiver for Broadband Communication

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scalable 256-element E-band phased-array transceiver with innovative calibration methods, enabling high-gain broadband communication suitable for 5G systems, demonstrated through simulation and real-world testing.

Contribution

It presents a novel 256-element antenna array with a fast calibration method and demonstrates its application in 5G communication systems.

Findings

Beam-forming performance matches simulations.

Effective near-field calibration reduces measurement complexity.

Successful implementation of 5G NR communication in office environment.

Abstract

For E-band wireless communications, a high gain steerable antenna with sub-arrays is desired to reduce the implementation complexity. This paper presents an E-band communication link with 256-elements antennas based on 8-elements sub-arrays and four beam-forming chips in silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS), which is packaged on a 19-layer low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) substrate. After the design and manufacture of the 256-elements antenna, a fast near-field calibration method is proposed for calibration, where a single near-field measurement is required. Then near-field to far-field (NFFF) transform and far-field to near-field (FFNF) transform are used for the bore-sight calibration. The comparison with high frequency structure simulator (HFSS) is utilized for the non-bore-sight calibration. Verified on the 256-elements antenna, the beam-forming performance measured in the chamber is in good agreement with the simulations. The communication in the office environment is also realized using a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) system, whose bandwidth is 400 megahertz (MHz) and waveform format is orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with 120 kilohertz (kHz) sub-carrier spacing.