In order to both lower the cost and improve the technical capabilities of commercial and civilian phased array radars dramatic cost and size reductions of basic MMIC components and modules when compared to the present military system approaches must be realized. These cost reductions and capability improvements can only be achieved by radically changing the radar architecture from the traditional “brick” design to a truly Scalable Planar ARray, SPAR technology. This radical shift in system construction employs highly integrated RFICs, using GaAs, Silicon, and SiGe based technologies where appropriate; exploiting high volume plastic packaging technologies for both low cost and high performance; and employing commercial printed circuit board and module manufacturing technologies. The viability of this SPAR approach is already being demonstrated on a number of phased array radar projects ranging from L-Band to Ka-Band.