A 146.7 GHz Transceiver with 5 GBaud Data Transmission using a Low-Cost Series-Fed Patch Antenna Array through Wirebonding Integration

A Review of Design and Integration Technologies for D-Band Antennas

“…These properties make corporate feeds a popular option in fixed-gain and beam-steering arrays for point-topoint backhaul and point-to-multipoint base-station use-cases, respectively. [25] and [21]. Approximate array dimensions are given in terms of guided (λ g ) and free-space (λ 0 ) wavelengths.…”

“…Most standard PCB materials are too lossy for mm-wave circuits, so high-performance laminates such as Rogers RO3003 and Isola Astra MT77 are used. Still, substrate and surface roughness losses in feed lines and distribution networks have been reported in the order of decibels per centimeter, limiting the practically feasible array size [21], [25], [57]. Additional losses due to wire-bond (WB) transitions from chip to PCB can amount to several decibels as reported in [23]- [25].…”

“…Advanced PCB-manufacturing technologies such as semiadditive processing (mSAP) and High-Density Interconnect (HDI) any-layer laser-via technology must be applied to achieve manufacturing tolerances of around 10 µm, which can still be significant in the mm-wave domain [58], [59]. For example, reported shifts of 3-4 GHz from the designed center frequencies were attributed to over-etching in [25], [26].…”

“…Whilst antenna size and array spacing are based on the operating frequency, MMIC dimensions do not necessarily scale accordingly. The required half-wavelength spacing for D-band steering arrays is around one millimeter, whilst the dimensions of single, dual and quad-channel D-band MMIC dies described in [24], [25] and [27] are in the order of 2×2 mm 2 or larger. Considering standard encapsulating surfacemounted chip-packages measure in the order of several square millimeters as well, densely spaced AoB arrays may require fan-in networks as depicted in Fig.…”

Connecting Chips With More Than 100 GHz Bandwidth

“…Historically, bond wire transitions (see Fig. 2(a)) were among the first interconnects used for microwave frequencies and until today they represent the most widespread interconnect approach, applied for frequencies from DC to beyond 100 GHz (see, e.g., [15]). However, they suffer from the fact that the two chips to be connected, or the chip and the board, have to be placed side-by-side, which limits downscaling of dimensions.…”