A low-Noise front-end with beamsteering capability at 35 GHz

This paper presents a novel implementation of a 35-GHz front-end for beamsteering applications. The achieved low noise figure of only 2.5 dB enables reception of very low-power signals. The 35-GHz input signal is downconverted to 5 GHz. A controllable phase shift is added by utilizing an injection locked voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) to drive the mixer. The phase noise of the local oscillator´s signal is reduced by using a cavity reference oscillator with very low phase noise for locking the VCO. A highly compact prototype has been build on RT/Duroid epsiv_r= 10.2 substrate and serves as test case for a future LTCC implementation.