A High-Resolution Transmission-Type (TT) Phaser Based on Reflection-Type (RT) Units for Radio Analog Signal Processing (R-ASP)

Abstract: A high Radio Analog Signal Processing (R-ASP) resolution transmission-type (TT) phaser based on reflection-type (RT) phaser units is introduced, theoretically studied and experimentally demonstrated. It is first shown that RT phasers inherently exhibit higher R-ASP resolution than their TT counterparts because their group delay swing is proportional to the reflection coefficient associated with a resonator coupling mechanism (admittance inverter), easy to maximize towards unity, rather than to a coupled-line coupling coefficient, typically restricted to values will inferior to unity, as in the RT case. Moreover, a detailed sensitivity analysis reveals that the proposed phaser is simultaneously features high R-ASP resolution and low sensitivity to fabrication tolerance, which makes it an ideal solution for R-ASP. The proposed phaser exhibits a 5 ns group delay swing over a fractional bandwidth of about 50% around 4 GHz.