UTSi® CMOS tunable RF front-end filters and LNAs for wide-band phased array antennas

We have studied the possibility to realize tunable RF front-end filters and LNAs for wide-band phased arrays using a 0.25 mum UTSi^reg (ultra thin silicon) CMOS low cost technology. Measured results of an X-band passive filter-bank and a C-band active tunable filter show that adequate performance can be obtained (in terms of relatively low losses or high gain and out-of-band rejection over wide tuning ranges) while using small circuit areas. The UTSi^reg CMOS based RF components we present in this paper could contribute to the miniaturization and integration of RF front-ends in phased arrays.