The Design of a 140 GHz 28 nm CMOS Vector-Sum Phase Shifter Based on Gilbert Cell and Current-Steering Amplifiers

This paper presents the design of a 140 GHz vector-sum phase shifter in a 28 nm CMOS process. Two variable-gain amplifiers—Gilbert cell and current-steering amplifiers—are investigated and compared. The Gilbert cell-based phase shifter controls the tail current source in a common-source amplifier. However, this configuration exhibits insufficient gain at D-band frequencies. To address this issue, we designed a current-steering variable-gain amplifier in cascode form to improve the gain performance. I/Q signals are generated by Marchand baluns and Lange couplers, and a 13-bit digital-to-analog converter enables fine bias control. Simulation results show that the current-steering phase shifter achieves up to a 4.4 dB higher gain than the Gilbert cell-based phase shifter, with an RMS gain error below 1.3 dB and an RMS phase error below 4.8° across 129–144 GHz.