A Novel Q-band Inductor-Less Vector Phase Shifter in 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS Technology for Active Reflective Intelligent Surfaces

This work proposes the design of a Q-band active vector phase shifter in 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology for active reflective intelligent surfaces. The phase shifter is based on two Gilbert cells working as variable gain amplifiers (VGAs) for the in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) input signals. This contribution presents an inductor-less design, which allows for obtaining wideband operation, greater miniaturization and scalability concerning the technology node without using complex matching networks. Furthermore, by avoiding the use of inductors, their low quality factors no longer degrades the circuit, thus improving overall performance. The active phase shifter layout simulations are reported to evaluate the achievable results: phase shift can range up to 360°, with a conversion loss of -2.5 dB at 50 GHz and 10 mW of overall power consumption.