This article presents the design of a 6-bit phase shifter in a 0.18-mu m CMOS technology for X-band phased array radar application. Meandered microstrip lines and compact circuit designs techniques yield a chip with 1.9 mm(2) die area. The fabricated phase shifter demonstrates a typical 15.7 +/- 1.1 dB insertion loss and a 4 degrees rms phase shift error at 9.5 GHZ. To the author's knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a 6-bit phase shifter using CMOS switches with the lowest die area among reciprocal digital phase shifters at X-band. (C) 2009 Wiley periodicals. Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 2404-2406, 2009 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24663