An mm-wave CMOS Active Phase Shifter with a Low-Loss I/Q Generator for 5G Applications

This paper presents an mm-wave CMOS active phase shifter with a low-loss I/Q generator for 5G applications. A hybrid high-pass/low-pass network topology is proposed to build the I/Q generator. The I/Q generator exhibits lower insertion loss compared to traditional ones. The designed phase shifter is constituted by an active single-to-differential convertor, a fully differential vector-summing core and a differential-to-single convertor. The mm-wave phase shifter, fabricated in 90 nm CMOS technology, provides 360° of phase shifting range over 35-43 GHz while consuming only 17.3 mW of power and 0.36 mm2 of chip area (excluding pads). Measurement results show that the phase shifter achieves an average gain of1.6-5 dB over 35-43 GHz. RMS phase error and RMS amplitude error for 32 measured phase states are less than 1 dB and 5.1°. The proposed phase shifter, which is able to cover the released frequency bands of n260, is a good candidate for 5G mm-wave applications.