A 17.7–20.2-GHz 1024-Element <i>K</i>-Band SATCOM Phased-Array Receiver With 8.1-dB/K G/T, ±70° Beam Scanning, and High Transmit Isolation

Abstract

This article presents a wideband scalable 17.7–20.2-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">$K$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -band satellite communication (SATCOM) receive (Rx) phased array with reconfigurable polarization. The phased array uses silicon Rx beamformer (BF) chips and silicon low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) and is able to receive either linear, rotated linear, circular clockwise, or anticlockwise polarization. It demonstrates a measured 3.47° half-power beamwidth (HPBW), more than 25-dB cross-polar discrimination (XPD), and +8.1-dB/K gain-to-noise (G/T) per polarization, and has more than 80-dB Tx-band isolation. The phased array is able 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">$\cos ^{1-1.2}(\theta)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> scan loss. The array aperture measures 22.4 cm <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times22.4$ </tex-math></inline-formula> cm. To our knowledge, this is the largest single printed circuit board (PCB) SATCOM <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$K$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -band phased-array receiver to date with the highest G/T and represents the highest level of integration at millimeter waves.