A two-channel, ultra-low-power, SiGe BiCMOS receiver front-end for X-band phased array radars

Thrivikraman, Tushar; Kuo, Wei-Min Lance; Cressler, John D.

doi:10.1109/bipol.2009.5314153

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…It is matched to 50 at all RF ports on chip, thus no matching network is needed on package. A more comprehensive description of the full phase shifter can be found in [17].…”

Section: B Phase Shifter Circuit Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Lightweight Organic X-Band Active Receiving Phased Array With Integrated SiGe Amplifiers and Phase Shifters

Patterson

Thrivikraman

Yepes

et al. 2011

IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.

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This paper presents for the first time an X-band antenna array with integrated silicon germanium low noise amplifiers (LNA) and 3-bit phase shifters (PS). LNAs and PSs were successfully integrated onto an 8 2 lightweight antenna utilizing a multilayer liquid crystal polymer (LCP) feed substrate laminated with a duroid antenna layer. A baseline passive 8 2 antenna is measured along with a SiGe integrated 8 2 receive antenna for comparison of results. The active antenna array weighs only 3.5 ounces and consumes 53 mW of dc power. Successful comparisons of the measured and simulated results verify a working phased array with a return loss better than 10 dB across the frequency band of 9.25 GHz-9.75 GHz. A comparison of radiation patterns for the 8 2 baseline antenna and the 8 2 SiGe integrated antenna show a 25 dB increase in gain (1 ). The SiGe integrated antenna demonstrated a predictable beam steering capability of 41 . Combined antenna and receiver performance yielded a merit of 9 1 dB K and noise figure of 5.6 dB.

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“…It is matched to 50 at all RF ports on chip, thus no matching network is needed on package. A more comprehensive description of the full phase shifter can be found in [17].…”

Section: B Phase Shifter Circuit Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…S-parameters of the packaged PS were taken using the same measurement setup and biased according to the specifications in [17]. Measurement comparisons of the bare PS versus the packaged PS are shown in Fig.…”

Section: E Ps Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Lightweight Organic X-Band Active Receiving Phased Array With Integrated SiGe Amplifiers and Phase Shifters

Patterson

Thrivikraman

Yepes

et al. 2011

IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.

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“…In recent years, several phase shifter architectures have been proposed that make use of on-chip waveguide transformers, allowing for a constant phase shift distribution across the network. Even though these approaches have produced largely successful results, they are only able to work at X-band and above due to the necessary on-chip wave transformers [1,2]. Additionally, effective approaches have demonstrated integrated RF phase shifters at K band and U band with the use of novel architectures that take advantage of on-chip matching structures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel phase-shifterless beam steering method for RF phase arrays using monolithic 1-D coupled-VCOs with integrated MOSFET switches

Lopez

Lie

Cothern

et al. 2010

2010 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology

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A fully monolithic 1-Dimensional (1-D) ACcoupled Voltage-Controlled-Oscillators (VCOs) network design for phased-array applications will be presented in this paper. This radio-frequency (RF) VCO array integrates on-chip inductors, varactors, and bias current sources and it contains an odd number of VCOs (i.e., 3 or 5, etc.) ACcoupled through on-chip switchable resistor networks with MOSFETs. Realistic circuit simulations in IBM 7HP 0.18μm BiCMOS design kit indicate promising results of the 1-D coupled-VCO array. Based on the simulation data and the current measured data that has been consistent with the simulation results, our design is able to control the phasing of this on-chip VCO-array by means of tuning the edge elements and/or by varying the coupling strength via the resistive coupling network digitally controlled with the MOS switches. This AC-coupled 1-D VCO array shows some great potential for RF active antennas applications to perform wide angle beam steering without the need for bulky phase shifters for the highly utilized S-band.

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“…Details of the LNA and PS are discussed in [8] and [9], respectively. Each component was first packaged individually on LCP and characterized.…”

Section: Sige Chip Packaging and Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementation of a low cost, lightweight X-band antenna with integrated SiGe RF electronics

Patterson

Thrivikraman

Yepes

et al. 2010

2010 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium

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This paper presents an organic, lightweight X-band antenna array with integrated silicon germanium (SiGe) low noise amplifiers (LNA) and 3-bit phase shifters (PS). The SiGe LNAs and PSs were successfully integrated onto an 8x1 lightweight antenna stack-up utilizing a multilayer liquid crystal polymer (LCP) substrate. Successful comparisons of the measured and simulated results verify a working antenna array with a return loss of around 10 dB across the frequency band of 9.25 GHz -9.75 GHz. A comparison of radiation patterns for the 8x1 antenna with integrated SiGe LNA and the 8x1 antenna with integrated SiGe LNA and PS show a 16 dB and 25 dB increase in gain, respectively. The ultimate goal is to develop an airborne X-band radar capable of a beam steering of at least ±40° through utilization of low power highly integrated SiGe electronics on a low cost multi-layer organic platform. This paper represents the first successful demonstration of a building block prototype (i.e., a fully integrated, high gain X-band antenna with SiGe LNAs and SiGe phase shifters) that can be expanded to a complete active phased array for remote sensing applications in X-band.

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A two-channel, ultra-low-power, SiGe BiCMOS receiver front-end for X-band phased array radars

Cited by 10 publications

References 7 publications

A Lightweight Organic X-Band Active Receiving Phased Array With Integrated SiGe Amplifiers and Phase Shifters

A Lightweight Organic X-Band Active Receiving Phased Array With Integrated SiGe Amplifiers and Phase Shifters

A novel phase-shifterless beam steering method for RF phase arrays using monolithic 1-D coupled-VCOs with integrated MOSFET switches

Implementation of a low cost, lightweight X-band antenna with integrated SiGe RF electronics

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