Chapter 1061: The T/R component turned out to be a circuit board

How to radiate electromagnetic waves? At the beginning, an antenna and a ground wire are used, and high-frequency signals are loaded on it, and then it can be launched.
Later, as technology progressed, the magnetron appeared. This is a vacuum tube. The electrons in the tube interact with the high-frequency electromagnetic field under the control of a constant magnetic field and a constant electric field that are perpendicular to each other to convert the energy obtained from the constant electric field into microwaves. Energy, so as to achieve the purpose of generating microwave energy.
This kind of device happened during the Second World War. It was completely practical during the Second World War. All kinds of radars are inseparable from the magnetron. This kind of magnetron has been continuously improved and has been used until now.
That's right, even now, even the extremely advanced flat-slot radar antenna that has been blown away is just an antenna that emits electromagnetic waves. The source of electromagnetic waves is still the magnetron behind this antenna.
Even if it is a passive phased array radar, the core is a magnetron.
Only when it comes to the active phased array radar can it be considered that the principle has changed.
The core of the passive phased array radar is the phase shifter, which emits electromagnetic waves at the back, and the phase shifter at the front changes the phase of the electromagnetic waves, while for the active phased array radar, the antenna emits electromagnetic waves by itself. Different.
Therefore, active phased array radar is also called active phased array radar. The antenna emits itself, which is active.
The core of this active phased array antenna design is the T/R component. Each of these components is a transmitting/receiving unit. At the same time, this is not an ordinary antenna, it is a circuit board itself.
Qin Guan knows that this component is very important, and once exchanged the information on this component and gave it to 114 institutes, but Qin Guan has never opened it. He is just a super military fan. When it comes to such professional knowledge, he Little is known.
Now Qin Guan was surprised to find that this thing is a circuit board?
"This component module, the basic chip set includes 3 MMICs components and 1 digital large-scale integrated circuit VLSI, of which the first three are high power amplifier, low noise amplifier plus protection circuit, adjustable gain amplifier and adjustable shift Phaser."
After a pause, Zhang Gong continued: "We wanted to integrate all the circuits on one chip, but we failed. Such integration is too difficult and there are serious electromagnetic interference problems, so we classified the circuits according to their functions. , And then placed on different chips, and then connected through the hybrid microcircuit."
Holding this component in his hand, Qin Guan was secretly surprised. It turns out that the development of his own microelectronics technology has laid the foundation for the research and development of phased array radar. He thought it was precision machining. It turned out to be like this. .
"We are now using GaAs-based MMICs technology. It has a shortcoming that the thermal conductivity is very low, so GaAs-based circuits need to be designed for heat dissipation." Zhang Gong smiled: "In fact, this module is everyone’s contribution. The main contribution is its heat dissipation design."
In the past, I only knew that the active phased array radar was very advanced, and at the same time I knew that the technology was difficult to achieve. As for how difficult it was, Qin Guan didn’t know how to do it. Now that I came here, Qin Guan finally understood it. The circuit board has four integrated circuits on it, and then all these small thin boards need to be combined together.
"Because it needs to generate heat, we need to install each T/R module on the backplane with a heat sink to dissipate the heat generated by the T/R components in time."
"We use the most advanced chip structure. Each T/R module is formed by vertically stacking three layers of circuit boards, and each layer of circuit boards includes 4 T/R circuits. The circuit generation in the T/R component The heat is conducted through the circuit board to the surrounding metal structure to be dissipated. Such a structure has many problems. For example, the biggest problem is that each antenna array radiating element must accurately ensure its position in the array. The gap processing of our flat-panel gap radar is even higher."
Qin nodded his head, remembering something, and said: "This kind of phased array radar antenna should be cooled by air and water, right?"
Qin Guan remembered the Aegis ship of the Han country. The flat-panel phased-array radar had a curved surface at the beginning. It was an air-cooled heat dissipation method, and later it became a flat plate. It was already a water-cooled method. It is definitely better than water-cooled.
"Yes, what we are going to do now is an airborne radar. This kind of radar can only use air-cooled heat dissipation, and because the speed of the fighter is relatively high, the cooling air is not a problem. If it is a shipboard, then water cooling is the appropriate choice. Up."
Qin Guan's coming today is indeed an eye-opener. Up to now, one of his fourth-generation aircraft has finally broken through one technology, that is phased array radar!
Suddenly, Qin Guan thought of something again: "Our radar requires more processors, right?"
If every radiation unit needs to be precisely controlled, then the demand for computer processing power is great.
"Yes, Mr. Qin, we can only use commercial machines at present. We have already taken a fancy to Hanxin Technology's Hanxin No. 2 chip. The combination of these chips and the formation of a server can fully meet our needs, but This is also a reason for being criticized. They think that we cannot avoid electromagnetic radiation in nuclear war by using commercial aircraft."
Qin nodded his head and said: "Up to now, there are still people who hold the view of nuclear war. If you want to deal with nuclear war, only electron tubes will do. If electron tubes are used, how big our equipment should be. The future war is a high-tech war. Nuclear deterrence is just a deterrence. If a nuclear war really breaks out, then even if we use electronic tubes to develop early warning aircraft, it will be useless!"
Phased array radars have objections, including the greatly increased processing power required. Commercial aircraft must be used instead of special military rugged chips.
In fact, look at the world, which AWACS is a special military product? They were all used after the reinforcement of commercial aircraft. Even the Aegis warships used small commercial aircraft. Because of the low performance of the military and the insufficient processing capacity, they could not meet the demand.
"My personal suggestion is that now that our active phased array radar technology has been developed, let's use this technology to build early warning aircraft. I will support it when the Air Force holds an early warning aircraft technical meeting." Qin Guan said: "Let's aim at the direction of phased array radar at 114!"