A 23–46-GHz Fully Planar 8 × 8 Multistandard 5G Phased Array With OFDM 400-MHz 64-QAM Waveforms at 40–44-dBm EIRP

This article presents a 23–46-GHz,
$8 \times 8$
single-polarized wideband bow-tie phased array designed to support multistandard fifth-generation (5G) communications. The array is built by integrating SiGe BiCMOS Tx/Rx beamformer chips with stacked differential bow-tie antennas on a single printed circuit board (PCB). The array is capable of ±55° and ±35° scanning in the azimuth plane and the elevation plane and achieves an effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of 42–48 dBm at P1 dB at 23–46 GHz. In the Rx mode, the array yields a peak G/T of −10 and −14 dB/K from 23 to 46 GHz. Measurements on 16/64/256-QAM modulated waveforms show <5% EVM and 42–45-dBm average EIRP with a peak data rate of 3.2 Gb/s. The array also transmits 5G OFDM 400-MHz waveforms with a PAPR of 11 dB at an EIRP of 40–44 dBm and 3.5% EVM, making it ideal for use as small base stations. To the authors’ knowledge, this work achieves the widest bandwidth among the reported planar phased arrays with application areas to multistandard 5G systems.