F6506

The F6506 is an 8-channel active beamforming IC (BFIC) designed for transmit (Tx) applications in K-band planar phased array antennas. In a typical configuration, eight output channels drive four dual-polarized antenna elements, while two common beam inputs allow for independent beam steering of vertical and horizontal polarizations.

Each channel of the IC has independent 6 bits of digital phase control covering 360° and 30.5dB of gain control with a step size of 0.484dB. Low RMS gain and phase errors enable precise amplitude and phase adjustment for gain compensation between channels and beam pattern control.

The F6506 SPI bus operates up to 65MHz and includes features for fast beam coefficient loading and rapid array-level beam switching. Up to 16 devices can be supported on the same SPI bus using dedicated address pins. The digital core and SPI use a 1.8V supply generated by an on-chip LDO.