3.6 GHz Reflection-type 360°-Phase-Tunable 3-Path Power-Divider With low Phase-Error up to 21.4 dBm Output Power per Path

This article presents the analysis and design of a three-way 360° phase-tunable power divider for a frequency range from 3.4 to 3.8 GHz. In contrast to most publications on phase shifters, this paper studies high power aspects of reflective loads for application in reflect type phase shifter (RTPS) based topologies. Furthermore, the detrimental effect of asymmetric loads on the overall phase shifter performance is discussed. This results in the complete design of the phase-tunable divider incorporating switched line phase shifters and the RTPS allowing output powers up to 21.4 dBm while still providing the whole tuning range with little phase error over the full frequency band. Up to 19.2 dBm output power per path, the phase error is below 5°.