US Patent 8098198 Vertically integrated phased array

A vertically integrated electronically steered phased array that employs beamsteering using a programmable phase locked loop including a local oscillator. The local oscillator provides an oscillator signal that is converted to an RF signal that can be either up-converted for a transmit operation or down-converted for a receive operation. The relative off-set between independently generated local oscillator signals forms the basis of the off-set phase required for a phased array. The absolute measure of off-set phase is referenced to a globally distributed clock signal that aligns the zero degree phase shift of the oscillator.