Patent Grant
7477116
At frequencies such as Ka band frequencies, voltage tunable dielectric phase shifters are usually designed around the concept of a tunable transmission line section, where the propagation velocity of the dielectric material is tuned to create a variable propagation delay through the transmission line section. These designs typically have a wide bandwidth of operation (>20%). They also exhibit high power capabilities (>1 W) and very linear behavior (low intermodulation distortion), since the circuit has an electrically large area that can distribute RF thermal heating effects over a large area, and due to the lack of resonant structures, peak RF voltages and currents are reduced.
However, decreasing size and increasing performance and tunability are always important due to increasing demands of wireless communications. Thus, a strong need exists for improved phase shifters and methods of manufacture therefore.
An embodiment of the present invention provides a hybrid phase shifter, comprising a first port wherein a microwave signal enters the hybrid phase shifter and splits and exits from two other ports into two reflector circuits, wherein the microwave signal reflects and re-enters the hybrid phase shifter and recombines and exits at an isolated port. The phase shifter may be operable at frequencies between 0.9 GHz and 5 GHz and operable at frequencies in the Ka-band. An embodiment of the present invention provides the hybrid phase shifter may further comprise meandering microstrip lines or using non-uniform lines such as alternating narrow and wide sections thereby enabling an overall size reduction a factor of 1.5 to 2. The meandering strip lines may be formed on a substrate and the phase shifter may be made tunable using voltage tunable dielectric material with the phase shifter.
Another embodiment of the present invention provides a phase shifter, comprising a substrate, resistive ink adjacent one surface of the substrate and separating a voltage tunable dielectric material from the surface of said substrate; and a plurality of conductors adjacent the voltage tunable dielectric material separated so as to form a gap filled with resistive ink in the gap. This embodiment may further comprise a voltage source connected to at least one of the plurality of conductors and connected to the resistive ink separating the substrate and the voltage tunable dielectric material.
Yet another embodiment of the present invention provides a method of phase shifting a microwave signal, comprising entering a hybrid phase shifter via a first port by a microwave signal and splitting and exiting from two other ports into two reflector circuits, wherein the microwave signal reflects and re-enters said hybrid phase shifter and recombines and exits at an isolated port. In an embodiment of this method meandering strip lines may be formed on a substrate and wherein the phase shifter may be made tunable using voltage tunable dielectric material with the phase shifter.
Yet another embodiment of the present invention provides for a method of manufacturing a phase shifter, comprising providing a substrate, placing resistive ink adjacent one surface of the substrate and between a voltage tunable dielectric material and the substrate and placing a plurality of conductors adjacent the voltage tunable dielectric material separated so as to form a gap filled with resistive ink in said gap. An embodiment of this method may further comprise connecting a voltage source to at least one of said plurality of conductors and to the resistive ink separating the substrate and the voltage tunable dielectric material.
The present invention is described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers indicate identical or functionally similar elements. Additionally, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the drawing in which the reference number first appears.
An embodiment of the present invention provides a low loss, low bias voltage, small footprint phase shifter which may be, although is not required to be, between 18 and 46 GHz. This embodiment may comprise a low loss optimized cross-section topology with material described below and optimized for low bias voltage.
Extra dielectric loading and meandering or non-uniform transmission line techniques may be used to reduce the size of the 180° hybrid type phase shifters. The 180° hybrid versus a lumped element all-pass network phase shifter type may be down-selected based on overall performance for production.
At Ka band frequencies, tunable dielectric phase shifters are usually designed around the concept of a tunable transmission line section, where the propagation velocity of the tunable dielectric material is tuned to create a variable propagation delay through the transmission line section. These designs typically have a wide bandwidth of operation (>20%). They also exhibit high power capabilities (>1 W) and very linear behavior (low intermodulation distortion), since the circuit has an electrically large area that can distribute RF thermal heating effects over a large area, and due to the lack of resonant structures, peak RF voltages and currents are reduced.
For low power (<1 W) phase shifters, a 180° hybrid with reflector circuits are used, or a lumped element approach is used, since these circuits are electrically much smaller than the transmission line type. At the heart of these designs are lumped element voltage tunable capacitors based on tunable dielectric materials. The main disadvantages of these circuits, compared to the transmission line approach, are low power handling capability and a narrow bandwidth (<10%) of operation. If a compact size, narrow band and low RF power (0.1 W) is required, a lumped element or 180° hybrid with reflector circuit may be used.
Both the transmission line type phase shifter's and the lumped element tunable capacitor's performance are governed by their geometry. Several cross-sectional topologies have been pursued based on 3 basic material configurations. These material configurations are:
There exists several parameter trade-offs that need to be considered in a typical phase shifter design. The tunability of the material, the loss tangent, i.e., tan δ, of the material, and the topology used to guide the electromagnetic wave are the three main variables. These trade-offs influence the final size and insertion loss of the phase shifters. Material tunability t is defined as
where ∈r(min) and ∈r(max) are respectively the minimum and maximum relative permittivity of the material. The loss tangent of the material is defined as:
where Q is the quality factor of the material, i.e. the ratio of stored to dissipated electromagnetic energy in the material. A material figure of merit FOMmat, which is convenient to use with regards to phase shifter applications, is defined as the amount of material loss contribution in dB of a 360° transmission line-type phase shifter:
The phase shifter performance is similarly described in terms of the device figure of merit:
The device figure of merit FOMdev incorporates not only material losses, but also conductor and matching losses and are the measure loss of the device (Measured_loss) divided by Measured_total phase shift of the device.
The gap topology of both the variable capacitor and variable transmission line section is defined by their cross-sections. Examples of cross-sections that have been investigated as shown generally as 100 of
Turning now to
The “resist” layers are thin resistive layers, which are used to apply bias voltage, but are chosen with high enough resistivity so that it is essentially invisible at the RF frequencies. It is clear from the table of
The trade-offs between the different design parameters of a given cross-section will be described here in more detail, based on the co-planar waveguide (CPW) cross-section topology. A variable capacitor can be based on this cross-section by using the central strip as a convenient biasing electrode, turning it into two capacitors in series. Thus, most of the results for the CPW investigation will be relevant, except where noted otherwise. For this topology, the design parameters are defined in
The conductor loss contribution as a function of some of the most important design parameters such as Parascan® thickness 520 vs conductor loss 510 are illustrated generally as 500 of
A narrower gap in a CPW defines lower characteristic impedance, and hence the conductor currents will increase, causing higher losses. But larger gaps will require higher bias voltages; therefore there exist a trade-off between the lowest possible loss and the lowest possible biasing voltage. This trade-off essentially does not apply for capacitor performance, however, since it does not support propagating currents parallel to the gap, as mentioned earlier. Therefore, the effect of the gap width on the losses in a tunable capacitor is almost negligible.
The total conductor loss in a 360° CPW phase shifter as a function of the tunable dielectric material thickness is shown in
If the conductor currents are squeezed into a thinner conductor layer, we also expect higher losses, as shown in
The total FOMdev is plotted in
The total phase shifter loss is also a function of frequency. If the phase shifter geometry is scaled in all dimensions with frequency, it is a well-known fact that the conductor loss should increase with the square root of the frequency. From experimental results we also know that the tunable material loss tend to increase in a similar non-linear manner with frequency.
An embodiment of the present invention provides lumped capacitor topologies supporting thick or thin film and provides methods for reducing bias voltage in tunable capacitors by concentrating on the gap cross-section geometry. One way of reducing the bias voltage, is to reduce of the gap dimension. Alternatively, biasing can be applied across the material layer using resistive layers invisible to the RF, while the gap is kept arbitrarily wide. Topologies favoring low bias voltage are provided below.
Reduced Gap Dimension
One way of reducing the gap is just to scale the coplanar dimensions, as shown in
Wide-gap with Transverse Biasing
The second method makes use of resistive inks to bias the tunable material directly through the thin dimension rather than across the gap. This configuration is shown in
Cross-section Down-selection
The simplest capacitor gap cross-section from a manufacturing point of view is the coplanar gap. The overlapped conductor technique provides higher capacitance per area, and the transverse biasing technique with resistive inks has the advantage of higher power and lower intermodulation distortion. But these topologies are more complex from a manufacturing point of view, and the phase shifter specifications do not require high power (only 0.1 W) and very low intermodulation distortion (only −22 dBc), therefore the co-planar gap topology will be adequate.
The basic Ka-band 180° hybrid phase shifter geometry is shown in
When printed on a 5 to 10 mil thick material with a dielectric constant of 10, current designs occupy an area 1×w=4.6 mm×2.9 mm at 19.9 GHz; 3.2 mm×2.0 mm at 29.4 GHz and 2.1 mm×1.3 mm at 44.5 GHz respectively. Size reduction to the required 1.7 mm×0.8 mm will be achievable through a combination of higher dielectric loading and meander line techniques. For example, a dielectric constant of 20 to 30 will reduce the dimensions by a factor 1.3 to 1.7. By meandering the microstrip lines or using non-uniform lines such as alternating narrow and wide sections, the overall size can reduced by another factor 1.5 to 2.
The second design to be considered here is based on an all-pass network principle. A combination of lumped capacitors and inductors form a circuit that can provide relative phase shift if the capacitors are tuned. The circuit layout is shown in
Turning now to
The tunable dielectric capacitor in the present invention may be made from low loss tunable dielectric material. The range of Q factor of the tunable dielectric capacitor is between 50, for very high tuning material, and 300 or higher, for low tuning material. It also decreases with increasing the frequency, but even at higher frequencies, say 30 GHz, may take values as high as 100. A wide range of capacitance of the tunable dielectric capacitors is available, from several pF to several μF. The tunable dielectric capacitor may be a two-port component, in which the tunable dielectric material may be sandwiched between two specially shaped parallel electrodes. An applied voltage produces an electric field across the tunable dielectric, which produces an overall change in the capacitance of the tunable dielectric capacitor.
Tunable dielectric materials have been described in several patents. Barium strontium titanate (BaTiO.sub.3—SrTiO.sub.3), also referred to as BSTO, is used for its high dielectric constant (200-6,000) and large change in dielectric constant with applied voltage (25-75 percent with a field of 2 Volts/micron). Tunable dielectric materials including barium strontium titanate are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,427,988 by Sengupta, et al. entitled “Ceramic Ferroelectric Composite Material-BSTO—MgO”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,635,434 by Sengupta, et al. entitled “Ceramic Ferroelectric Composite Material-BSTO-Magnesium Based Compound”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,830,591 by Sengupta, et al. entitled “Multilayered Ferroelectric Composite Waveguides”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,846,893 by Sengupta, et al. entitled “Thin Film Ferroelectric Composites and Method of Making”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,766,697 by Sengupta, et al. entitled “Method of Making Thin Film Composites”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,693,429 by Sengupta, et al. entitled “Electronically Graded Multilayer Ferroelectric Composites”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,635,433 by Sengupta entitled “Ceramic Ferroelectric Composite Material BSTO—ZnO”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,074,971 by Chiu et al. entitled “Ceramic Ferroelectric Composite Materials with Enhanced Electronic Properties BSTO—Mg Based Compound-Rare Earth Oxide”. These patents are incorporated herein by reference.
Barium strontium titanate of the formula Ba.sub.xSr.sub.1-xTiO.sub.-3 is a preferred electronically tunable dielectric material due to its favorable tuning characteristics, low Curie temperatures and low microwave loss properties. In the formula Ba.sub.xSr.sub.1-xTiO.sub.3, x can be any value from 0 to 1, preferably from about 0.15 to about 0.6. More preferably, x is from 0.3 to 0.6.
Other electronically tunable dielectric materials may be used partially or entirely in place of barium strontium titanate. An example is Ba.sub.xCa.sub.1-xTiO.sub.3, where x is in a range from about 0.2 to about 0.8, preferably from about 0.4 to about 0.6. Additional electronically tunable ferroelectrics include Pb.sub.xZr.sub.1-xTiO.sub.3 (PZT) where x ranges from about 0.0 to about 1.0, Pb.sub.xZr.sub.1-xSrTiO-.sub.3 where x ranges from about 0.05 to about 0.4, KTa.sub.xNb.sub.1-xO.sub.3 where x ranges from about 0.0 to about 1.0, lead lanthanum zirconium titanate (PLZT), PbTiO.sub.3, BaCaZrTiO.sub.3, NaNO.sub.3, KNbO.sub.3, LiNbO.sub.3, LiTaO.sub.3, PbNb.sub.2O.sub.6, PbTa.sub.2O.sub.6, KSr(NbO.sub.3) and NaBa.sub.2(NbO.sub.3).sub.5KH.sub.2-PO.sub.4, and mixtures and compositions thereof. Also, these materials can be combined with low loss dielectric materials, such as magnesium oxide (MgO), aluminum oxide (Al.sub.2O.sub.3), and zirconium oxide (ZrO.sub.2), and/or with additional doping elements, such as manganese (MN), iron (Fe), and tungsten (W), or with other alkali earth metal oxides (i.e. calcium oxide, etc.), transition metal oxides, silicates, niobates, tantalates, aluminates, zirconnates, and titanates to further reduce the dielectric loss.
In addition, the following U.S. patent applications, assigned to the assignee of this application, disclose additional examples of tunable dielectric materials: U.S. Pat. No. 6,514,895 filed Jun. 15, 2000, entitled “Electronically Tunable Ceramic Materials Including Tunable Dielectric and Metal Silicate Phases”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,774,077 filed Jan. 24, 2001, entitled “Electronically Tunable, Low-Loss Ceramic Materials Including a Tunable Dielectric Phase and Multiple Metal Oxide Phases”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,737,179 filed Jun. 15, 2001, entitled “Electronically Tunable Dielectric Composite Thick Films And Methods Of Making Same”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,617,062 filed Apr. 13, 2001, entitled “Strain-Relieved Tunable Dielectric Thin Films”; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,905,989 filed Jun. 1, 2001 entitled “Tunable Dielectric Compositions Including Low Loss Glass Frits”. These patent applications are incorporated herein by reference.
The tunable dielectric materials can also be combined with one or more non-tunable dielectric materials. The non-tunable phase(s) may include MgO, MgAl.2O4, MgTiO3, Mg2SiO4, CaSiO3, MgSrZrTiO6, CaTiO3, Al2O3, SiO2 and/or other metal silicates such as BaSiO3 and SrSiO3. The non-tunable dielectric phases may be any combination of the above, e.g., MgO combined with MgTiO3, MgO combined with MgSrZrTiO6, MgO combined with Mg2SiO4, MgO combined with Mg2SiOb 44, Mg2SiO4 combined with CaTiO3 and the like.
Additional minor additives in amounts of from about 0.1 to about 5 weight percent can be added to the composites to additionally improve the electronic properties of the films. These minor additives include oxides such as zirconnates, tannates, rare earths, niobates and tantalates. For example, the minor additives may include CaZrO3, BaZrO3, SrZrO3, BaSnO3, CaSnO3, MgSnO3, Bi2O3/2SnO2, Nd2O33, Pr7O11, Yb2O3, Ho2O3, La2O3, MgNb2O6, SrNb2O6, BaNb2O6, MgTa2O6, BaTa2O6 and Ta2O3.
Thick films of tunable dielectric composites can comprise Ba1-xSrxTiO3, where x is from 0.3 to 0.7 in combination with at least one non-tunable dielectric phase selected from MgO, MgTiO3, MgZrO3, MgSrZrTiO6, Mg2SiO4, CaSiO3, MgAl2O4, CaTiO3, Al2O3, SiO2, BaSiO3 and SrSiO3. These compositions can be BSTO and one of these components or two or more of these components in quantities from 0.25 weight percent to 80 weight percent with BSTO weight ratios of 99.75 weight percent to 20 weight percent.
The electronically tunable materials can also include at least one metal silicate phase. The metal silicates may include metals from Group 2A of the Periodic Table, i.e., Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba and Ra, preferably Mg, Ca, Sr and Ba. Preferred metal silicates include Mg2SiO4, CaSiO3, BaSiO3 and SrSiO3. In addition to Group 2A metals, the present metal silicates may include metals from Group 1A, i.e., Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs and Fr, preferably Li, Na and K. For example, such metal silicates may include sodium silicates such as Na2SiO3 and NaSiO3-5H2O, and lithium-containing silicates such as LiAlSiO4, Li2SiO3 and Li4SiO4. Metals from Groups 3A, 4A and some transition metals of the Periodic Table may also be suitable constituents of the metal silicate phase.
Additional metal silicates may include Al2Si2O7, ZrSiO4, KAlSi3O8, NaAlSi3O8, CaAl2Si2O8, CaMgSi2O6, BaTiSi3O9 and Zn2SiO4. The above tunable materials can be tuned at room temperature by controlling an electric field that is applied across the materials.
In addition to the electronically tunable dielectric phase, the electronically tunable materials can include at least two additional metal oxide phases. The additional metal oxides may include metals from Group 2A of the Periodic Table, i.e., Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Be and Ra, preferably Mg, Ca, Sr and Ba. The additional metal oxides may also include metals from Group 1A, i.e., Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs and Fr, preferably Li, Na and K. Metals from other Groups of the Periodic Table may also be suitable constituents of the metal oxide phases. For example, refractory metals such as Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Zr, Nb, Mo, Hf, Ta and W may be used. Furthermore, metals such as Al, Si, Sn, Pb and Bi may be used. In addition, the metal oxide phases may comprise rare earth metals such as Sc, Y, La, Ce, Pr, Nd and the like.
The additional metal oxides may include, for example, zirconnates, silicates, titanates, aluminates, stannates, niobates, tantalates and rare earth oxides.
Preferred additional metal oxides include Mg2SiO4, MgO, CaTiO3, MgZrSrTiO6, MgTiO3, MgAl2O4, WO3, SnTiO4, ZrTiO4, CaSiO3, CaSnO3, CaWO4, CaZrO3, MgTa2O6, MgZrO3, MnO2, PbO, Bi2O3 and La2O3. Particularly preferred additional metal oxides include Mg2SiO4, MgO, CaTiO3, MgZrSrTiO6, MgTiO3, MgAl2O4, MgTa2O6 and MgZrO3.
The additional metal oxide phases are typically present in total amounts of from about 1 to about 80 weight percent of the material, preferably from about 3 to about 65 weight percent, and more preferably from about 5 to about 60 weight percent. In one preferred embodiment, the additional metal oxides comprise from about 10 to about 50 total weight percent of the material. The individual amount of each additional metal oxide may be adjusted to provide the desired properties. Where two additional metal oxides are used, their weight ratios may vary, for example, from about 1:100 to about 100:1, typically from about 1:10 to about 10:1 or from about 1:5 to about 5:1. Although metal oxides in total amounts of from 1 to 80 weight percent are typically used, smaller additive amounts of from 0.01 to 1 weight percent may be used for some applications.
In one embodiment, the additional metal oxide phases may include at least two Mg-containing compounds. In addition to the multiple Mg-containing compounds, the material may optionally include Mg-free compounds, for example, oxides of metals selected from Si, Ca, Zr, Ti, Al and/or rare earths. In another embodiment, the additional metal oxide phases may include a single Mg-containing compound and at least one Mg-free compound, for example, oxides of metals selected from Si, Ca, Zr, Ti, Al and/or rare earths. The high Q tunable dielectric capacitor utilizes low loss tunable substrates or films.
To construct a tunable device, the tunable dielectric material can be deposited onto a low loss substrate. In some instances, such as where thin film devices are used, a buffer layer of tunable material, having the same composition as a main tunable layer, or having a different composition can be inserted between the substrate and the main tunable layer. The low loss dielectric substrate can include magnesium oxide (MgO), aluminum oxide (Al2O3), and lanthium oxide (LaAl2O3).
When the bias voltage or bias field is changed, the dielectric constant of the voltage tunable dielectric material will change accordingly, which will result in a tunable varactor. Compared to semiconductor varactor based tunable filters, the tunable dielectric capacitor based tunable filters of this invention have the merits of lower loss, higher power-handling, and higher IP3, especially at higher frequencies (>10 GHz). It is observed that between 50 and 300 volts a nearly linear relation exists between Cp and applied Voltage.
In microwave applications the linear behavior of a dielectric varactor is very much appreciated, since it will assure very low Inter-Modulation Distortion and consequently a high IP3 (Third-order Intercept Point). Typical IP3 values for diode varactors are in the range 5 to 35 dBm, while that of a dielectric varactor is greater than 50 dBm. This will result in a much higher RF power handling capability for a dielectric varactor.
Another advantage of dielectric varactors compared to diode varactors is the power consumption. The dissipation factor for a typical diode varactor is in the order of several hundred milliwatts, while that of the dielectric varactor is about 0.1 mW.
Diode varactors show high Q only at low microwave frequencies so their application is limited to low frequencies, while dielectric varactors show good Q factors up to millimeter wave region and beyond (up to 60 GHz).
Tunable dielectric varactors can also achieve a wider range of capacitance (from 0.1 pF all the way to several .mu.F), than is possible with diode varactors. In addition, the cost of dielectric varactors is less than diode varactors, because they can be made more cheaply.
It is to be understood that, while the detailed drawings and specific examples given describe preferred embodiments of the invention, they are for the purpose of illustration only, that the apparatus and method of the invention are not limited to the precise details and conditions disclosed and that various changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention which is defined by the following claims:
This application is a divisional application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/178,099 entitled PHASE SHIFTERS AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURE THEREFORE by Cornelis Frederick du Toit, filed on Jul. 8, 2005 (abandoned), which claimed the benefit of Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/586,266, filed Jul. 08, 2004 entitled “Ka-Band Phase Shifter Technology Based on Parascan® Tunable Materials”.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5472935 | Yandrofski et al. | Dec 1995 | A |
| 7048992 | Zhang et al. | May 2006 | B2 |
| 7123115 | du Toit | Oct 2006 | B2 |
| 20020014932 | Osadchy et al. | Feb 2002 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20070200649 A1 | Aug 2007 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60586266 | Jul 2004 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 11178099 | Jul 2005 | US |
| Child | 11698547 | US |
