A 28/37 GHz Frequency Reconfigurable Dual-Band Beamforming Front-End IC for 5G NR

A 28/37 GHz frequency reconfigurable dual-band beamforming front-end IC is presented. It integrates frequency reconfigurable structures in a power amplifier and a vector-summing type phase shifter to cover widely separated dual frequency bands with a single front-end IC. A wideband variable-gain low-noise amplifier and switches are also included to cover the dual bands. It has a 6-bit phase control resolution and a 16 dB gain control range with 0.9 degrees and 0.62 degrees RMS phase errors at 28 and 37 GHz, respectively. It achieves 13.5 and 13.5 dBm 1-dB compressed output power, 15.5% and 14.1% transmitter efficiency, and a noise figure of 4.4 and 4.9 dB at 28 and 37 GHz, respectively. The front-end IC delivers linear output power of 9.3 and 8.6 dBm with a 64-quadrature amplitude modulation 200 MHz signal at 28 and 37 GHz, respectively.