A 16-Channel 3.1–25.5-GHz Phased-Array Receive Beamformer IC With Two Simultaneous Beams and 2.0–2.4-dB NF for C/X/Ku/Ka-Band SATCOM

This article presents a 3.1–25.5-GHz phased-array receive beamformer integrated circuit (BFIC) for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$C$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$X$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Ku$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-, and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Ka$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-band satellite communication (SATCOM) in a 90-nm SiGe BiCMOS process. The chip adopts the radio frequency (RF) beamforming architecture and consists of 16 channels for dual-beam operation. The measured electronic gain of each channel is 26.6 dB with a 3.1–25.5-GHz 3-dB bandwidth, 25-dB gain control, and 5-bit phase resolution. The measured noise figure (NF) is <2.0 dB at the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$C$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$X$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-, and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Ku$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-bands and <2.4 dB at the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Ka$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-band. A 16-element wideband phased array using Vivaldi antennas is designed. The array achieves ±60° scanning, and the broadside gain-to-noise-temperature (G/T) is between −14.6 and −12.0 dB. QPSK, 8-PSK, and 16-QAM modulated signals (up to 400 MBaud) are supported with <3% error-vector magnitudes (EVMs) at all scan angles. To the authors’ knowledge, the BFIC demonstrates the widest operating bandwidth for SATCOM ground-terminal reception with a state-of-the-art NF.