Gold-coloured connectors line the edges of an electronic circuit board with a tiny black chip nestled in its centre.
Hidden inside this little chip is an innovation that enables the deployment of next‑generation satellites carrying either digital communications, Earth observation, or navigation payloads. It is a key building block – a multichannel transceiver capable of converting wideband radio‑frequency signals directly into digital data and the other way around.
In radio electronics, a transceiver is a device that combines a transmitter and a receiver in one, enabling two-way communication or simultaneous transmission and reception of radar signals.
IMST, a German engineering company, recently demonstrated a prototype of their new product in the Microwave Lab at ESTEC, the European Space Agency’s technical heart.
“Our transceiver supports a wide range of radio frequencies, allowing for a high degree of programmability and reconfigurability on the go,” comments Jan Steinkamp, radio frequency engineer at IMST. “By integrating multiple capabilities onto a single chip, we simplify a system’s hardware complexity while significantly reducing its power consumption at the same time.”
“IMST’s new highly integrated circuit represents another critical European intellectual property (IP) block developed in one of Europe’s deep‑submicron semiconductor technology nodes,” adds Václav Valenta, ESA’s microwave engineer. “It is suitable for a wide range of applications, including software‑defined radios and digital beamforming – strategic technologies at the heart of modern satellite constellations.”