Abstract-This paper presents the design, development and experimental characterization of a monolithic phased array antenna integrated on a microwave laminate.A four-element linear antenna array is realized by cofabricating the corporate feed network, microstrip-CPW transitions, DC blocks, and mesoscale phase shifters on the same substrate. The phase shifters used here are electrostatically actuated and their operation is similar to that of the distributed MEMS transmission line phase shifters. Various components of the array are designed and are individually evaluated before fabricating together. The measured radiation pattern characteristics for this array shows a scan angle of 10 • in the Xband. All fabrication processes employed here can be performed at a good printed circuit manufacturing facility. This simple approach of cofabricating various components can be readily extended for large phased arrays required in radar and space communication applications.

This paper presents a simple and low cost fabrication approach using extended printed circuit board processing techniques for an electrostatically actuated phase shifter on a common microwave laminate. This approach uses 15 lm thin copper foils for realizing the bridge structures as well as for a spacer. A polymeric thin film deposited by spin coating and patterned using lithographic process is used as a dielectric layer to improve the reliability of the device. The prototype of the phase shifter for X-band operation is fabricated and tested for electrical and electromechanical performance parameters. The realized devices have a figure of merit of 70°/dB for a maximum applied bias potential of 85 V. Since these phase shifters can be conveniently fabricated directly on microwave substrates used for feed distribution networks of phased arrays, the overall addition in cost, dimensions and processing for including these phase shifters in these arrays is minimal.