Design and development of a Ku-Band MMIC transmit receive front end chip

This paper presents a unique miniaturized single chip design solution for RF Front End of Ku-band AESA radar. The Front-End Chip (FEC) has been designed for the frequency range of 15.5 GHz to 17.5 GHz and fabricated with using 150 nm Gallium Nitride on SiC process of UMS, France. All the three functionalities i.e. Power amplifier, Low noise amplifier and Single Pole Double Throw Switch (SPDT) have been integrated in a small size of $4.5 \mathrm{~mm} \times 3.5 \mathrm{~mm}$. The fabricated TR chip has an output power of more than 37 dBm with high gain (27 dB) and efficiency (20%-28%) in the transmit chain. The FEC also has high gain (25dB) and low noise figure (less than 3.6 dB) of the receive chain. This design has been fabricated and the results have been validated by RF characterization.