A 4Rx, 4Tx Ka-band transceiver in 40nm bulk CMOS technology for satellite terminal applications

This paper presents a K/Ka-band transceiver for phased array satellite mobile ground terminal applications. The transceiver integrates four receiver (Rx) RF paths operating at 17 similar to 21GHz and the four transmitter (Tx) RF paths operating at 27 similar to 30GHz, each with independent 0.5dB gain and 5-bit phase control to support analog RF beamforming. Each Rx RF path is summed in an integrated passive combiner before an IQ frequency down conversion stage driven with a LO frequency doubler. Each Tx RF path is driven from an integrated IQ modulator clocked with an LO frequency tripler with an active power splitter. The Rx and Tx baseband (BB)/IF paths consist of 325MHz wide IQ VGAs and filtering to support up to 650MHz instantaneous bandwidth. The transceiver achieves 3.3dB NF and + 10dBm output power per RF path in Rx and Tx modes respectively, whilst consuming 200mW in 4RF+BB Rx mode and 500mW in BB+4RF Tx mode. It is fabricated in 40nm bulk CMOS and occupies 10.7mm(2).