Out of band performance

There are a number of factors acting against you on this. The phase shifters inside the ADAR100 are IQ modulators. So the RF input signal is split into quadrature components. The accuracy of this quadrature split will affect the accuracy of the phase setting. You can see this in Figure 36. If you are wanting to operate at 1 GHz, that is over two octaves lower than the plotted data. You can see from Figure 36 that even at 6 GHz, things are starting to degrade.

The other issue is frequency response of the part. You can see in Figure 10 that the response roll-off is quite steep at low and high frequencies. 

The part will still operate but you are going to see very low output power and the phase shifting accuracy will be poor. I think that your best bet is to get and evaluation board and try this out. 

Eamon

There are some options available to you. 

1. If the signal you want to transmit is already formed (e.g. you have a QAM carrier at 1 GHz that is coming from somewhere else), you could use
   1. individual vector modulators
   2. analog or digital phase shifter cascaded with an analog or digital attenuator
2. You can find some options herehere. Beamformers, Phase Shifters, and Vector Modulators | Analog Devices
3. If your signal is not yet formed but you have the modulation information in I and Q format, you could use

   1. An IQ Modulator such as ADL5375 (www.analog.com/adl5375

      ) at each element. The I and Q inputs of the IQ modulator will be fed with the I and Q data that would have been digitally phase shifted so that the signals at the individual elements are also phase shifted relative to one another.

   2. A complete transceiver such as AD9361 (www.analog.com/ad9361) or ADRV9009 (www.analog.com/adRV9009) (there are multiple options). This is essentially the same as approach a above but you now have IQ Mods, DACS, IQ Demods, ADCs and PLL all integrated into one chip. Also, many of these integrated transceivers have multiple channels in one chip. 

Eamon

The process of synchronization is not trivial. Just because you are running multiple devices form the same external PLL, doesn't mean that the outputs will be phase aligned. The thread below speaks to the process for ADRV9009. My understanding is that this is easier to do on the newer transceivers, that is, ADRV9XXX part numbers.  - Eamon

(32) Multi-ADRV9009 phase synchronization with external LO - Q&A - Design Support ADRV9008-1/ADRV9008-2/ADRV9009 - EngineerZone