A Ku-band 6-bit phase shifter in 0.35-μm SiGe BiCMOS technology

This paper presents a 6-bit digital phase shifter designed at Ku-band for electronic beam steering of satellite based phased array antenna systems, which is implemented in a commercial 0.35-μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The 6-bit phase shifter utilizes embedded switched filter structure with n-MOS transistors as switches. Four different phase shifter topologies are adopted to achieve the desired insertion phases with accurate phase shifting control, low insertion loss and small inter-state amplitude errors. The simulated performance of all 64 states of the phase shifter demonstrates an insertion loss of 11±2.7 dB and a RMS phase error of <5°, and P1dB of better than 16 dBm. The input/output return losses are better than −8 dB over the 14–18 GHz frequency range respectively. And the chip size of this prototype is only 1.4×0.93 mm2 excluding PADs.