Design and Performance Optimization of an Ultra-Wideband Reconfigurable RF Front-End for 6G-Enabled mmWave Wireless Communication Systems

Abstract

This shift to 6G wireless communication systems necessitates RF front-end modules in ultra-wideband operation in the mmWave band (30-300 GHz). This paper shows the design, and performance of a reconfigurable RF front-end covering 24- 100 GHz design, which is optimized to the upcoming 6G millimeter-wave systems. Our suggested architecture comprises GaAs monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) consisting of reconfigurable low-noise amplifier (LNA), broadband power amplifier (PA) and tunable bandpass filter (BPF). There is the adaptive bias tuning, impedance matching, and dynamic gain control to balance the power efficiency and linearity requirements of some of the key design techniques in use here. Design, which is highly sophisticated in framework, was tested at the following levels, (a) circuit level using ADS, (b) electromagnetic level using CST Microwave studio and (c) post layout level using HSPICE. With a tunable gain of 9-18 dB, the front-end implements a return loss of less than 10 dB, throughout the entire band, and a targeted noise figure of least 2.5 dB. The PA has a maximum power-added efficiency (PAE) of 42% on the basis of which it is applicable in energy-restricted edge applications. The contribution of this work is an RF solution that can be developed almost infinitely scalable and programmed according to need. Aimed applications are smart cars radar, satellite telemetry, and IoT networks of the future. The findings place this architecture in relation to being a good front-end candidate to the flexible, low latency 6G communication system.