Scientists at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering have
developed a first-of-its-kind computer chip that acts as a powerful miniature
electronic version of a satellite dish, a discovery that could dramatically
improve military applications such as radar and missile tracking.

The device, called a phased array, is a broadcasting or
receiving mechanism that contains many small antennas. The signals sent to each
of these antennas are delayed, and their phase is shifted in a specific pattern
that electronically simulates the signal delay of a physically curved satellite
dish.

Phased arrays have an advantage over normal antennas because
they can selectively receive or broadcast signals in one particular direction.
This decreases interference from other signals and increases the speed of data
exchange.

The military, which uses phased arrays in radar systems,
depends heavily on the speed at which a phased array can electronically
“swivel.” While tracking a missile, for example, there may be no time to
manually turn an antenna.

The chip represents a revolution in phased array technology
with its unprecedented complexity and small size.

Until now, phased arrays had mostly been used for military
applications because their size — which can be as large as a highway billboard
— and million-dollar pricetag made them impractical for commercial purposes.

Working for about a year, two graduate students in the
electrical and computer engineering department, Jason May and Kwang-Jin Koh, fit
an entire phased array onto a single chip.

Koh, who researches phased arrays for his doctoral thesis,
was drawn to work with phased arrays because of the increasing demand for
commercial applications, which was hampered only by the tradition of constructing
them with many separate chips made from high-cost semiconductors.

May said that fitting the phased array onto one chip makes
the device less expensive and more reliable, expanding the potential military
and commercial applications.

According to Gabriel Rebeiz, the UCSD electrical engineering
professor who proposed and oversaw the project, the chip breaks many world
records in its intricacy and compact size.

“No one has ever been able to use silicon … to put 16
channels at this frequency range, with excellent amplitude and phase balance
between the channels, and with phase control for each channel,” Rebeiz said in an e-mail. “No one. Not even
Raytheon, Boeing or Lockheed. No one. This is a first in every aspect.”

The team first created a chip that could receive signals,
and has since completed a transmitter.

Some possible commercial uses of the chip include being able
to beam a movie wirelessly between certain projectors and DVD players, or using
it as a small antenna on car roofs that would allow access to over 500
television channels.

Rebeiz said he has received positive feedback regarding the
chip’s commercial uses.

“Heaven help us, but everyone says that this is a great
commercial application,” he said.