Phased-Array Antennas For Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellite Communications

MixComm, Inc presents to the US Army a high-performance, low-cost Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) CMOS 20-GHz receive and 44-GHz transmit phased array chipset to achieve best-in-class cost, size, weight, and power for satellite-on-the-move (SOTM) applications. The 45-nm SOI CMOS technology offers performance advantages compared to CMOS and SiGe with higher output power relative to CMOS and better digital signal processing capability relative to SiGe. MixComm will develop custom millimeter-wave transmit and receive beamformer chips as well as on-chip mixed signal circuitry for built-in self-test, calibration, and amplifier linearization. Stacked FET power amplifiers at 44 GHz can yield 6-10 dB higher output power than CMOS/BiCMOS processes while attaining best-in-class efficiency. For a given EIRP, the MixComm solution will require fewer chips that operate at higher efficiency at similar cost leading to an optimal chipset solution. Furthermore, the 45-nm RF SOI processes is available from on-shore, trusted foundries. During Phase I, MixComm will develop circuit and layout for transmit and receive beamformer designs based on 4-element dual-polarization architectures that can be scaled through PCB assembly into 1000s of elements with COTS upconversion/downconversion and ADCs on PCB.