A D-Band Micromachined End-Fire Antenna in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS Technology

Abstract

The design of a radiation-efficient D-band end-fire onchip antenna utilizing a localized backside etching (LBE) technique, as well as an antenna-in-package (AiP) on a low-cost organic substrate is presented. Quasi-Yagi-Uda antennas are chosen for end-fire radiation because of their compact size. The on-chip antenna is realized in the back-end of the line (BEOL) process of a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology, while the inpackage antenna is realized in liquid crystal polymer technology for comparison. The on-chip antenna design is optimized to meet both process reliability specifications and radiation performance, and corresponding design guidelines are provided. The fabricated on-chip antennas show state-of-the-art performance with a peak gain of 4.7 dBi and, simulated radiation efficiency of 82%, and measured radiation efficiency of 72-76% using the Gain/Directivity and Wheeler-cap methods at 143 GHz. The antenna demonstrates a 3-dB gain bandwidth of more than 30 GHz and 10-dB impedance bandwidth greater than 20 GHz (14% impedance bandwidth). The measurements of the onpackage end-fire antenna showed very comparable results with a peak measured gain of 6 dBi and a simulated and measured radiation efficiency of 92% and 86% at 143 GHz. These results demonstrate that highly efficient on-chip end-fire antenna implementation is possible in standard commercially available BiCMOS process. Index Terms-Antenna-in-package (AiP), liquid crystal polymer (LCP), localized back-side etching, mm-waves, micromachining, on-chip antenna, SiGe BiCMOS 0018-926X (c)

A -Band Packaged Antenna on Organic Substrate With High Fault Tolerance for Mass Production

“…As a result, the difference between the gain of an ideal LCP antenna and that with surface roughness larger than 0.6 µm is stabilized at 3 dB, which is in accordance with eqn. (1). From the parametric study above, it can be seen that that antenna's performance is robust against fabrication tolerance of not-well-controlled etching rate and surface roughness, which is a highly appreciated advantage for low-cost mass production.…”

“…Moreover gain and efficiency of on-chip antennas are normally lower compared to in-package versions. Examples of realized on-chip antennas include a D-band on-chip end-fire Yagi-Uda antenna with 4.7 dBi peak gain and 76 % radiation efficiency based on a 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS process [1]; an on-chip dual dipole antenna with 7 dBi gain and 60 % efficiency implemented on a SiGe BiCMOS process [2]; and a slot antenna of -2 dBi gain and 18 % efficiency by a CMOS process [3]. Besides the limited antenna gain and radiation efficiency, the considerable clean room processing cost is another barrier for mass production.…”

Patch Antenna and Antenna Array on Multilayer High-Frequency PCB for D-Band

“…Such processes are not feasible for complex integrated systems like phased antenna arrays. An on-chip end-fire antenna in Dband has been manufactured on SiGe BiCMOS process in [5] by exploiting a localized back-side etching (LBE) feature to improve the antenna efficiency. On-chip antennas are of interest because the antenna can be integrated with the active circuitry without having lossy interconnections.…”

Performance-Issues-Mitigation-Techniques for On-Chip-Antennas – Recent Developments in RF, MM-Wave, and Thz Bands With Future Directions

“…The AoC implementation in MM-Wave frequency bands (30 GHz -300 GHz) which have got distinctive consideration recently [21], [23], [31] are very well-suited because of two major reasons. First, the antenna size is compact at these frequencies because of the smaller form-factor [21].…”