A Power-Efficient K-Band Circular Polarized 256-Element CMOS Phased-Array Transmitter With Coupler-End Structure for LEO Satellite Terminal

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Abstract
This article presents a 256-element CMOS active phased-array transmitter (TX) that works at 19 GHz for low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite applications. This work proposes a 90° coupler-end structure for circular polarization (CP) wave generation, which features low power consumption and enables dual-CP waves emitting in two directions. In addition, this work employs two calibration techniques to improve cross-polarization discrimination (XPD) in single-CP and dual-CP modes. The power consumption of the proposed structure is 9.4 W at 56-dBm average effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP), which is 40% lower than the state-of-the-art. It consumes 17.8 W at 64.7-dBm maximum EIRP. The beam-steering ability of this work can achieve ±65° with a sidelobe level <10-dBc. For the EVM measurement result, in single-CP mode, this work can support 256 amplitude-phase shift keying (APSK) modulation with a 2-Gbaud symbol rate on a 56-dBm EIRP output. In dual-CP mode, this work can support 256 APSK modulation with a 250-MBaud symbol rate on a 56-dBm EIRP output.

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