A light weight 8-element broadband phased array receiver on Liquid Crystal Polymer

In this paper we present a light weight broadband phased array hybrid receiver module on a multi-layer Liquid Crystal Polymer (LCP) substrate. The phased array module has 8 channels and is designed to operate in the Ka-band, from 32–37 GHz. A broadband linear tapered slot antenna array with a corporate power combiner, chip-on-board MMICs, and all control chips necessary for beam steering are all integrated on a multi-layered near-hermetic LCP substrate. The phased array antenna has a measured bandwidth of 5 GHz with ±30 degree beam steering capability from boresight, and shows less than 6.75 degree of beam squint across the full bandwidth of operation. The total size of the array is 100 mm × 100 mm with a board thickness of only 16 mils and weighs only 12.3 grams.