An X-band Slice Receiving Module for AESA

An X-band receiving module has been developed to support active electronically steerable antenna. The module is composed of a single RF receiving channel, which has the functions of power modulation, phase shift and attenuation. In order to meet the requirement of small size, high maintainability, a new vertical interconnection technology is proposed by using two blind-mate RF connectors, and a custom miniature DC/control 15-pin blind-mate connector, and the multi-functional chip (MFC) technique and multi-chip module (MCM) technique are also adopted. The channel gain of the receiving module is more than 31dB, the noise figure is less than 2.2dB, the amplitude error is less than 0.2dB (RMS), the phase error is less than 2 degree (RMS), the size of the module is 40mm*20mm*11mm and the total power consumption is less than 0.5W. The methodology and concept was proved by successful production and fully testing of 600 modules.