A 27–31-GHz 1024-Element <i>Ka</i>-Band SATCOM Phased-Array Transmitter With 49.5-dBW Peak EIRP, 1-dB AR, and ±70° Beam Scanning

Abstract

This article presents a wideband scalable 27–31-GHz 1024-element <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Ka$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -band SATCOM transmit (TX) phased array with embedded RF drivers and reconfigurable polarization. The phased array uses silicon TX beamformer (BF) chips and printed stacked-patch antennas on an FR-4 based printed circuit board (PCB) to TX either linear, rotated linear, circular clockwise, or anticlockwise polarization. It demonstrates a measured 3.5° half-power beamwidth (HPBW), 35-dB cross-polar discrimination (XPD), sub-1-dB axial ratio (AR), +49.5-dBW peak effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) on axis, and the ability to scan to ±70° in all planes without grating lobes and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$cos^{1-1.1}(\theta)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> scan loss. The measured error vector magnitude (EVM) of less than 2.3% and the adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR) of less than −32 dBc across all scans at <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$P_{1\,\text{dB}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> make it suitable as a compact high-efficiency SATCOM transmitter. The array aperture measures 14.9 cm <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times14.9$ </tex-math></inline-formula> cm, and it is scalable to larger phased arrays with 4096 and a higher number of elements. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the highest level of integration at millimeter waves and with the highest measured EIRP from a SATCOM phased array.