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 $C$ -, $X$ -, $Ku$ -, and $Ka$ -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 $C$ -, $X$ -, and $Ku$ -bands and ${<}2.4$ dB at the $Ka$ -band. A 16-element wideband phased array using Vivaldi antennas is designed. The array achieves $\pm$ 60 $^\circ$ 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.