Patent ID: 8107894

Claim:
A millimeter wave (MMW) power source module, comprising: a heat sink having a surface oriented in an X-Y plane; a submodule on the surface of the heat sink comprising; a substrate, an input antenna configured to receive an RF input signal from a waveguide and couple the signal to a strip-line, R output antennas configured to receive RF input signals from respective strip-lines and couple the signals to respective waveguides, a first power amplification stage comprising: a 1:M1 strip-line power divider, said power divider having one input coupled to receive the RF input signal from the input antenna and route the RF input signal along M1 conductive transmission paths to M1 output where M1 is an integer, M1 circuit devices, each circuit device having an input coupled to a corresponding one of the M1 outputs, a first stage solid-state amplifier chip that amplifies the RF input signal and a circuit output, and M1 1:M2 strip-line power dividers, each having one input coupled to one said circuit output to receive the amplified RF input signal and route the amplified RF input signal along M2 conductive transmission paths to M2 outputs coupled to one of the R output antennas where M2 is an integer, at least one of M1 or M2 being an integer greater than 1, and R 1:N waveguide power dividers, each power divider having one free-space input coupled to receive the free-space RF signal from one of the submodule's R output antennas and route the amplified RF input signal along N free-space transmission paths to N free-space radiating elements where N is an integer greater than 1, each said waveguide power divider residing in an X-Z plane and stacked in the Y direction to provide a planar output of R*N radiating elements in a Y-Z plane.