A MEMS microwave phase detector with broadband performance operable at X‐band

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis letter presents the design, fabrication, and measurement of a broadband MEMS microwave phase detector for X‐band, 8–12 GHz. In order to realize the broadband performance, a two‐section power combiner is designed and utilized for the configuration of the phase detector. Stable sensitivities of phase detection are revealed by measurements within the bandwidth 8–12 GHz. The sensitivities are all better than 7.1, 22.1, 33.4, 42.0, and 51.2 mV/mW at 10, 50, 100, 150, and 200 mW input power, respectively. Moreover, the discrepancies are less than 1.8, 5.1, 7.3, 9.3, and 10.9 mV/mW at the above powers for different frequencies. The measured output voltage versus the phase difference at 200 mW, 10 GHz is normalized and compared to the theoretical value. The relative error is less than 8.5%. The response times of this presented phase detector are also obtained by measurement. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:806–809, 2016