5G Millimeter-Wave Phased-Array Transceiver: System Considerations and Circuit Implementations

In this paper, system considerations and circuit implementations for 5G millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) phased-array transceiver are presented. High data-rate and medium-range communications pose challenges for the design of phased-array transceiver circuits operating at the mm-Wave band. A possible solution is that the core chip for digital, mixed-signal and RF processing blocks are integrated in advanced CMOS, while power amplifier (PA), low-noise amplifier (LNA) and RF switch are implemented in III-V technologies (i.e., GaAs or GaN). To show the feasibility of such system architecture, key building blocks include high power amplifier (HPA), broadband LNA, amplitude-invariant phase shifter and phase-invariant variable gain amplifier (VGA) are reviewed. The proposed techniques make the mm-Wave phased-array transceiver systems suitable for 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) applications.