A Ku Band 8-Channel Dual-Domain Reconfigurable Wideband Beamforming Transmitter IC with Polarization/Beam Control

This paper presents a Ku-band 8-channel wide-band beamforming transmitter IC with dual-domain reconfigurability (polarization/beam) implemented in SiGe Bi-CMOS technology. The transmitter functions within a 10.0–15.0 GHz frequency range and integrates 32 independent amplitude-phase control channels on a single die. Through the utilization of an innovative reconfigurable power combiner network, the transmitter is capable of achieving flexible configurations in single-beam, dual-beam, four-beam, and eight-beam modes, which significantly improves system adaptability and aligning with advanced multi-beam phased array architectures. Measurement results demonstrate that the gain of the broadband beamforming transmit IC exceeds 23 dB, the gain fluctuation is less than 2.6 dB, and the OP1dB is greater than 6.5 dBm. The measured root mean square (RMS) phase error remains below 5° with corresponding phase-dependent gain variation limited to 0.35dB, confirming precise amplitude and phase control capabilities. These results confirm that the proposed beamforming IC exhibits significant architecture advantages in multi-beam scalability, representing a competitive candidate for next-generation phased array system integration.