Circuit Innovations for D-Band Phased Array Transceivers

This article presents circuit innovations for the implementation of silicon D-band phased array transceivers. A D-band passive phase shifter, using two parallel transmission lines periodically connected with multiple switches, is introduced for low insertion loss, precise phase control, and compact chip area. AD-band bi-directional common-gate amplifier based on a symmetric inter-stage matching network and current-reuse technique is proposed to provide gain for transmit and receive modes within a single amplifier footprint and low DC power consumption. The proposed building blocks are expected to motivate further development of compact, low-power D-band transceivers for next-generation communications and sensing.