Vertically integrated electronically steered phased array and method for packaging

• US 7,916,083 B2
• Filed: 05/01/2008
• Issued: 03/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/01/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: EMAG Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: EMAG Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Thiesen, Jack H., Brakora, Karl F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tarcza; Thomas H
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mull; Fred H
• Application Number:
  US12/113,526
• Publication Number:
  US 20090273517A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,062 Days
• Field of Search: 342/372, 342/373, 343/700.MS
• US Class Current: 342/372
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 21/065 Patch antenna array
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 3/2605 Array of radiating elements provided with a feedback control over the element weights, e.g. adaptive arrays

Abstract

A vertically integrated electronically steered phased array that employs beamsteering using a programmable phase locked loop including a local oscillator. The local oscillator provides an oscillator signal that is converted to an RF signal that can be either up-converted for a transmit operation or down-converted for a receive operation. The relative off-set between independently generated local oscillator signals forms the basis of the off-set phase required for a phased array. The absolute measure of off-set phase is referenced to a globally distributed clock signal that aligns the zero degree phase shift of the oscillator.

Claims

1. A vertically integrated phased array comprising:

a plurality of stacked layers including;

an antenna layer having a plurality of antennas,

an interconnect layer having a plurality of receive and transmit components, and

at least one packaging layer having a plurality of digital components, wherein the plurality of receive and transmit components include a plurality of receive programmable phased locked loops each including a plurality of local oscillators providing a wideband local oscillator signal having a controlled phase and a plurality of transmit programmable phased locked loops each including a plurality of local oscillators providing a wideband local oscillator signal having a controlled phase, wherein the receive and transmit programmable phased locked loops receive control data that sets the relative phase of the local oscillator signals to control the phase of receive signals and transmit signals.

2. The phased array according to claim 1 wherein the receive programmable phase locked loop is part of a receive distribution network including a top layer and a bottom layer, said top layer including a local oscillator that controls a phase locked loop at a plurality of nodes of the top layer of the receive distribution network, and the phase locked loop at the plurality of nodes of the top layer each control a subset of the plurality of receive programmable phase locked loops in the separate receive channels.

3. The phased array according to claim 1 wherein the transmit programmable phase locked loop is part of a transmit distribution network including a top layer and a bottom layer, said top layer including a local oscillator that controls a phase locked loop at a plurality of nodes of the top layer of the transmit distribution network, and the phase locked loop at the plurality of nodes of the top layer each control a subset of the plurality of receive programmable phase locked loops in the separate transmit channels.

4. A vertically integrated phased array comprising:

a plurality of transmit channels including;

a plurality of transmit components-nodes, said transmit components nodes providing a transmit distribution network including a top layer and a bottom layer, said top layer including a local oscillator that controls a phased locked loop at the plurality of nodes in the top layer of the transmit distribution network, and the phased locked loop at the nodes of the top layer each control a programmable phased locked loop in the bottom layer for separate transmit channels.

5. The phased array according to claim 4 wherein the phased array is configured as a stack of layers including an antenna array layer having a plurality of antennas, an interconnect layer including the plurality of receive and transmit components nodes and at least one packaging layer having a plurality of digital components.

6. The phased array according to claim 4 wherein the programmable phase locked loops in the bottom layers each include a plurality of local oscillators for providing wide bandwidth.