GXSC Beamformer Replaces ADAR1000 in VSAT Portable Phased-Array Ground Stations

With the rapid deployment of LEO satellite internet and satellite communication systems, portable VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) ground stations—leveraging their advantages of light weight, mobility, and rapid deployability—are widely used in emergency communications, vehicular and maritime mobile communications, networking in remote areas, and other scenarios. Active electronically scanned arrays (AESAs), through electronic beamforming and inertia-free scanning techniques, represent the development direction for next-generation portable VSAT ground stations.

A portable VSAT phased-array ground station primarily consists of an active antenna array, a beamforming front-end, frequency-conversion transceivers, baseband processing, and attitude-sensing modules. Relying on phased-array beamforming technology, it achieves directional synthesis and electronic scanning of electromagnetic beams by adjusting the signal phase and gain of each antenna element. Traditional beamforming front-ends typically use the ADAR1000. GXSC has introduced a beamformer that is fully performance-compatible with the ADAR1000, while offering certain cost advantages and a stable supply chain.

The GXSC beamformer is based on an independently developed forward-design architecture. It is a wideband amplitude-phase multifunctional chip for the C/X/Ku bands (5–18 GHz), incorporating 4 receive channels and 4 transmit channels along with corresponding power dividing (transmit) and combining (receive) networks, and integrating amplitude and phase control circuits for each channel. The chip supports power modulation, temperature sensing, power detection, beam storage, and more. The RF ports are symmetrically arranged on the left and right, with a single pin controlling TX/RX switching. It adopts a standard SPI beam-control protocol.

The main functional features of the GXSC beamformer are as follows:

5–18 GHz operating range

Time-division half-duplex receive/transmit operation

4T4R RF channels with integrated power dividing/combining networks

360° phase control range / 7-bit / LSB = 2.8°

31.5 dB amplitude control range / 6-bit / LSB = 0.5 dB

Integrated biasing and channel control

Integrated temperature sensor

Integrated quantization ADC

Integrated beam storage

Integrated power detection

Single-pin control for fast TX/RX state switching

Standard 4-wire SPI control interface

WLCSP package (6.20 × 6.05 × 0.725 mm)

The product is available in either die or packaged chip form to meet the needs of various application scenarios. The die version is suitable for COB (chip-on-board), custom packaging, micro-assembly, miniaturized SIP (system-in-package), and other applications; the plastic-packaged chip version is suitable for large-scale surface-mount assembly, helping to reduce the complexity of micro-assembly and facilitating rapid array integration for system performance verification.