A compact L-band broadband 4-bit MMIC phase shifter with low phase error

A compact L-band 4-bit phase shifter monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) has been designed, fabricated, and tested. Each bit of this phase shifter design is based on an optimum topology to reach balanced and optimal insertion loss, phase shifting accuracy, gain variation, and bandwidth performance. Extensive electromagnetic simulation is performed in circuit design to ensure first-pass success. This MMIC is fabricated with commercially available M/A-COM technology solutions´ 0.5μm GaAs pHEMT technology. The chip size of this MMIC is 2.45 mm × 1.35 mm (3.3 mm²). This phase shifter is shown to yield state-of-art performance, resulting in 3.2 dB ±0.6 dB insertion loss and 3° rms phase error over 53% bandwidth and 2° over 42% bandwidth.