Design of a Programmable, Compact C-Band RF and DC Multilayer Low-Power Driver Module for Troposcatter Communication

This paper presents the design and development of a Continues Wave C-band Solid State driver module which can be used to drive high power SSPAs. This module has been designed & tested for various RF parameters like Intermodulation Distortion, Spectral regrowth, Error Vector Magnitude and AM to PM conversion. This module has two inbuilt digital attenuators, one for output power adjustment and another for Automatic Level Control (ALC). It has an analog attenuator at the input stage to adjust for input power variation. It has a digital phase shifter which can be used to phase-match two SSPA modules during power combining. It has an inbuilt over drive RF protection feature. The module is designed, fabricated & tested successfully and meets all the required specifications.