This paper presents the development of an active module using a ferroelectric coplanar waveguide
(CPW) phase shifter for a Ku-band active phased array antenna (APAA). This active module
performs roles such as amplifying an RF signal with low noise c...
This paper presents the development of an active module using a ferroelectric coplanar waveguide
(CPW) phase shifter for a Ku-band active phased array antenna (APAA). This active module
performs roles such as amplifying an RF signal with low noise coming from an antenna and
changing the phase of a received RF signal. This module is composed of a 3-stage low-noise
amplifier (LNA), a high-voltage dc block with an RF choke (RFC), and a ferroelectric phase
shifter, whose structure is a CPW transmission line based on a (Ba, Sr)TiO3 (BST) thin film. The
ferroelectric BST thin film is deposited on an MgO substrate by using pulsed laser deposition.
Both ends of the CPW are continuously tapered to obtain good impedance matching without
degrading the phase tuning property of the ferroelectric CPW phase shifter. The active module
using a ferroelectric CPW phase shifter attains a phase-controllable range of 360 while retaining
a return loss of better than .15 dB at Ku-band. The measured gain of the active module increases
from 2 dB to 16 dB corresponding to a change in the dc voltage from 0 to 150 V with a 3.6 dB
maximum noise figure at 12 GHz.d