Wafer-Scale Antenna (WSA) Tile for Low-Power-Density, Phased-Array Radars (9707)

Hittite proposes to develop a WSA tile with which to build very large antennas for GMD, BMDS and SBX radars. A 10-GHz, WSA tile with integrated beam forming offers dramatically lower size, weight, power and cost relative to conventional phased-array antennas. The 127-element, 10-GHz ¡O 10% tile contains all of the transmit, receive, and beam forming functions on a single, 8¡" (200 mm) silicon wafer. The tile includes distribution (or corporate feed) networks to connect each of the 127 element sites to a single input and single output The WSA tile will enable large radar systems with impressive performance. The rectangular (~ 2:1 aspect ratio), 9 m2 GMD/BMDS antenna uses 365 WSA tiles to produce 11.6 kW at 25% duty cycle and receive signals with more than 107 dB sensitivity. For the 300 m2, circular SBX antenna, 12,147 WSA tiles will produce 385 kW at 25% duty cycle and receive signals with nearly 153-dB sensitivity. All three antennas offer full fields of view > ¡O 70,a. The Phase I effort will focus on developing low-cost, low SWaP circuitry suitable for large, low-power-density radars. Fully functional antenna sites will be demonstrated in Phase II leading to full WSA tile development in Phase III.