FIG. 8B is a side perspective view of the substrate of FIG. 8A.

The recent emerging gallium nitride (GaN) based high power density microwave circuitry opens up new opportunities for advancing the technology of phased array antenna systems to greater performance. However, such a high power density scheme introduces various issues such as thermal distribution, heat dissipation, high voltage discharge, RF loss, etc., that must be addressed in the design concept. Further, as discussed above, the corner/edge effect on the phase array antenna aperture front degrades the array performance and this effect is even more significant in small-scale finite arrays, as may be implemented for newer, advanced mobile communications architectures, such as 5G or 5GE systems, for example. The conventional approaches of simply implementing RF absorber and/or “dummy/surrogate” elements around the peripheral of antenna aperture lead to manufacturing complexity and additional cost. Furthermore, the requirement for additional real estate to implement these approaches may be difficult, if not impractical, in applications where the installation space of the phased array antenna is limited.

Aspects and embodiments offer a simpler solution to mitigate the corner/edge effect using modulation of the dielectric constant of the antenna substrate using additive manufacturing (“3-D printing”) techniques while retaining a flat surface over the entire antenna aperture front, as discussed further below.