Microwave Journal
www.microwavejournal.com/articles/36100-trx-half-duplex-beamformer-for-mmwave-5g-from-renesas
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TRX Half-duplex Beamformer for mmWave 5G from Renesas

Eight-Channel TRX Half-Duplex Beamformer IC: F5288

June 1, 2021

RFMW announced design and sales support for a beamforming IC from Renesas. The F5288 is an eight-channel TRX half-duplex silicon beamformer IC designed using a SiGe BiCMOS process for 28 GHz dual polarization 5G phased array applications. The core IC has very flexible gain and phase control on each channel to achieve fine beam steering and gain compensation between radiating channels. The core design includes standard SPI protocol that operates up to 50 MHz with fast beam switching and fast beam-state loading. Renesas’ phased array beamforming ICs enable cost-effective, next-generation system solutions for mmWave 5G, satcom and radar applications. Each beamforming IC contains multiple independently controlled active channels for element-level beam pattern shaping in electronically scanned array antennas. The compact ICs are available in chip-scale BGA packages to enable very low profile and small form factor phased array antennas with λ/2 element spacing. The ICs are available as transmit-only (Tx), receive-only (Rx), or transmit/receive (TRx) variants such as the F5288 and cover 5G mmWave, satcom and radar frequency bands. Renesas’ beamformer product line is rapidly expanding to keep up with the growing commercial demand for affordable phased array antennas.