0.25-μm BiCMOS System-on-Chip for K-/Ka-Band Satellite Communication Transmit-Receive Active Phased Arrays

The first millimeter-wave system-on-chip for dual-band phased array applications is presented as a proof of concept for K-/Ka-band (20/30 GHz) satellite communication on-the-move applications. Each chip includes four transmit (Tx) and two receive (Rx) channels working at Ka- and K-band, respectively. The proposed architecture enables a half-duplex operating mode in two different bands. Its development was driven taking into account the integration into a realistic Tx/Rx shared aperture phased array architecture. Full amplitude and phase control are provided for each channel with high granularity (65 536 states). The measured results demonstrate the validity of the proposed chip architecture, even though the channel output power and the noise figure (NF) are not in full agreement with the simulations. In Tx mode, the channel provides 9.47 dB of gain with 4.19-dBm output power at 1-dB compression. In Rx mode, the channel gain is 21.6 dB with an NF of 5 dB. In a scenario with 5.265° phase steps and 8-dB amplitude tapering capability, the amplitude and phase root-mean-square (RMS) errors within the Tx bandwidth (29.5-30.8 GHz) are equal to 0.52 dB and 3.74°, respectively. The amplitude and phase RMS errors in the Rx bandwidth (19.7-21 GHz) are equal to 2.05 dB and 12.11°, respectively. The chip consumes 340 mW in Tx and 242 mW in Rx mode and occupies $3.3 x 3.5$ mm$²$.