Cross-hatching of PCB grounds refers to a process in which certain ground planes appear as copper lattices; regular openings are placed at regular intervals. Nowadays, the efficacy of ground hatching on rigid PCBs is minimal. However, it is becoming essential for flexible hybrid electronics. Utilizing hatched grounds for flexible applications could offer some benefits. Hatched grounds can perform dual roles, act as ground surfaces, and offer structural support. Hatched grounds are more durable for bending and stretching applications. Also, hatched grounds are desirable in terms of material conservation. In this paper, we focus on studying how hatched grounds affect the RF performance of a straight microstrip line. Simulations show that cross-hatched grounds with more than 50% filling produces good radio-frequency performance. We will study the effect hatching pattern as well as the density of the hatching on the RF performance of the microstrips. The theoretical modeling is considered in this work and fabricating aerosol jet silver ink microstrip lines on PET substrates will be considered as an extension of this work.
There is growing interest in the use of additive manufacturing for the fabrication of RF devices due to fast prototyping capabilities and the use of less material as opposed to traditional fabrication techniques. In addition to the previously mentioned advantages, the aerosol jet printing method in particular allows for the conformal printing of RF components. This work models the effect of the bend radius on the return loss and radiation pattern of a dual-band (28 GHz and 39 GHz) mm wave patch antenna array design that will be aerosol jet printed. The antenna is modeled on a 5-mil thick flexible substrate (PET) and the simulation is run from 27 GHz to 40 GHz using HFSS. The return loss and radiation pattern results of the antenna are compared for various bend radii (0.25 in to 2 in) of the conformal surface the antenna is to be printed upon. Simulation results show a maximum frequency deviation of about 400 MHz on the return loss for the low (28 GHz) frequency band of the antenna when it is bent from a bend radius of 0 in to 2 in.
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