Silicon-Germanium for Phased Array Radars

Phase and amplitude controlling ICs realized in a low cost standard silicon process are demonstrated. The design of several ICs at S-, C- and X-band has shown that silicon germanium is a strong contender to gallium arsenide where lowest noise figure is not vital. This applies also to the T/R-modules suited for military AESA-radars. The circuits presented in this paper are manufactured by austriamicrosystems in their 0.35 mum SiGe-BiCMOS process with an f_T of 70 GHz.