Chad E. Patterson

A 60-GHz Active Receiving Switched-Beam Antenna Array With Integrated Butler Matrix and GaAs Amplifiers

This paper presents for the first time a 60-GHz receiving switched-beam antenna on organic liquid crystal polymer (LCP) platform. A 4 × 1 quasi-Yagi array is incorporated with a 4 × 4 Butler matrix beamforming network and GaAs low-noise amplifiers on an LCP substrate. The active beam is controlled by GaAs single-pole-double-throw switches to access the four output states of the Butler matrix. The entire 4 × 1 active array is 1.4 cm × 1.75 cm and consumes 1.1 W of dc power. Successful comparisons of the measured and simulated results verify a working phased array with a return loss better than 10 dB across the frequency band of 56.7-63.7 GHz. A comparison of radiation patterns demonstrate beam steering of ±40° with a peak active gain of 27.5 dB. The combined antenna and receiver noise performance at 60 GHz exhibits an estimated merit G/T of -18.6 dB/K and noise figure of 5.4 dB.

Integrated 60-GHz Antenna on Multilayer Organic Package With Broadside and End-Fire Radiation

Existing antenna and array systems for 60-GHz wireless personal area network communications suffer from inherent poor radiation at grazing angles. This limitation is overcome in this work with a highly integrated antenna module that combines both broadside and end-fire radiators in a single multilayer organic package. Liquid crystal polymer and Rogers RO3003 are used to implement a small form factor (12.5 mm × 10 mm × 1.3 mm) antenna architecture. The co-designed broadside and end-fire antennas are characterized and measured for operation in the 57-66-GHz frequency range. Measured boresight gains of 8.7 and 10.9 dBi are achieved for the broadside and end-fire antennas while maintaining 35-45-dB isolation between both antennas. The numerically estimated radiation efficiency is found to be 92.5% and 78.5% for the broadside and end-fire elements. These antennas are orthogonally polarized and suitable for frequency reuse. Integrated circuits are mounted inside recessed cavities to realize a fully active antenna module with beam switching or simultaneous radiation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first publication of a single package multilayer integration of millimeter-wave active antennas with both azimuth and elevation coverage.

A Lightweight Organic X-Band Active Receiving Phased Array With Integrated SiGe Amplifiers and Phase Shifters

This paper presents for the first time an X-band antenna array with integrated silicon germanium low noise amplifiers (LNA) and 3-bit phase shifters (PS). LNAs and PSs were successfully integrated onto an 8 × 2 lightweight antenna utilizing a multilayer liquid crystal polymer (LCP) feed substrate laminated with a duroid antenna layer. A baseline passive 8×2 antenna is measured along with a SiGe integrated 8×2 receive antenna for comparison of results. The active antenna array weighs only 3.5 ounces and consumes 53 mW of dc power. Successful comparisons of the measured and simulated results verify a working phased array with a return loss better than 10 dB across the frequency band of 9.25 GHz-9.75 GHz. A comparison of radiation patterns for the 8×2 baseline antenna and the 8×2 SiGe integrated antenna show a 25 dB increase in gain (ΔG). The SiGe integrated antenna demonstrated a predictable beam steering capability of ±41°. Combined antenna and receiver performance yielded a merit G/T of -9.1 dB/K and noise figure of 5.6 dB.

An Ultra-Thin, High-Power, and Multilayer Organic Antenna Array With T/R Functionality in the

The transmit-receive (T/R) operation of an ultra-thin organic antenna array is presented at a center frequency of 9.5 GHz. High transmit power is achieved while maintaining an ultra-low profile in a novel system-on-a-package scheme whereby 32 silicon-germanium (SiGe), transmit/receive integrated-circuit (TRIC) modules have been flip-chip bonded to the array board. Each SiGe TRIC drives a pair of slot-coupled microstrip patch antennas that form an 8 × 8 rectangular array, which is all packaged in an organic substrate stack of liquid crystal polymer and RT/Duroid 5880LZ. The organic package occupies an area of 30.5 cm × 25.4 cm and has a total thickness of only 1.80 mm. The small-signal characterization of the array showed a G/T=-6.64 dB , and a measured receive gain of 20.1 dB with a variation of 0.7 dB over a 1-GHz bandwidth (BW). Finally, far-field large-signal experiments showed a measured effective isotropically radiated power of 47.1 dBm with a variation of 2.36 dB over the same BW, and without the aid of additional thermal management components.

X

This work shows the design of stripline beam-former network components at 9.5 GHz in liquid crystal polymer. Particular emphasis is placed in the implementation of via fences to minimize radiation loss and cross coupling of radio frequency (RF) signals to other bias and digital lines that would feed multiple chips in a single antenna package. Additionally, a Coplanar-Waveguide-to-Stripline transition is presented as a suitable solution for an end-fire RF feed. Measurements of the fabricated striplines showed a normalized return loss better than 20dB over the entire X Band. At 9.5GHz, a line loss of 0.26dB/cm was estimated for the striplines, whereas for the proposed transition, back-to-back measurements showed an insertion loss of 0.42dB.

-Band

Interconnects in radio frequency (RF) packages have a strong tendency to deteriorate RF performance, especially in high-frequency systems. In this paper, comparison is made between the wirebonded and embedded flip-chip packages. X-band silicon-germanium low-noise amplifiers are used to evaluate the performance of these interconnects. Measured results show that the embedded flip-chip packages have better RF performance than the wirebonded packages for X-band applications. At 9.5 GHz, the flip-chip interconnects contribute only 0.4 dB of insertion loss, while the wirebond interconnects contribute 2.2 dB of insertion loss. The flip-chip and wirebond interconnects are modeled and validated against measured results from 8 to 20 GHz. For the first time, multiple dies are put together in a single liquid crystal polymer package to compare the packaging effects, and to demonstrate the feasibility of embedding multiple dies within a single package for highly integrated solutions.

Design of stripline beam-former network components for low-profile, organic phased arrays in the X Band

This paper presents, for the first time, a low cost, 60 GHz, RF front-end Tx/Rx integrated with a Yagi-Uda antenna array on organic Liquid Crystal Polymer substrate. The Tx/Rx module consists of a GaAs LNA, PA and a Single Pole Double Throw (SPDT) switch wirebonded on a single, multilayer substrate. The array was designed for operation at 60.6 GHz with a gain of 12.1 dBi. The radiation pattern measurements were conducted and showed an active antenna gain of 31.8 dB for the receiver and 21.6 dB of gain for the transmitter. It demonstrates 19.7 dB and 9.5 dB of added gain from the integrated receive and transmit modules respectively. The array has 1 and 3 dB deviation in gain in receiver and transmitter modules respectively from 55–63 GHz.

Packaging Effects of Multiple X-Band SiGe LNAs Embedded in an Organic LCP Substrate

This paper presents an X-band silicon-germanium (SiGe) low-noise amplifier (LNA) successfully integrated onto a 4×1 lightweight antenna array utilizing a multilayer liquid crystal polymer (LCP) substrate. Measurements show the packaged LNA had nearly no negative effect on antenna performance. The resulting antenna gain of the antenna array with packaged LNA measured 25 dBi. A comparison of radiation patterns for the 4×1 antenna with integrated LNA and the baseline 4x1 antenna showed a 16.2 dB increase in antenna gain. The nulls and peaks of both antennas remained closely matched. Also, the 3 dB beam widths showed a 2 degree decrease in the H-plane and a 7 degree decrease in the E-plane.

Low cost 60 GHz RF front end transceiver integrated on organic substrate

This paper presents, for the first time, a low cost ultra wide band (16.8 GHz bandwidth) end-fire Tapered Slot Antenna(TSA) on organic Liquid Crystal Polymer substrate(LCP). This antenna utilizes novel microstrip-to-slot transition which makes it very wide band (75.5 GHz-92.3 GHz). The antenna was designed and optimized for frequency operation at 80 GHz with a gain of 8 dBi. The gain, S11 and H-plane Co and Cross polarization measurements were conducted and successfully demonstrated a passive antenna gain of 8 dBi from 75.5 GHz to 92.3 GHz with minimal deviation of 2.5 dB. Return loss also demonstrates 16.8 GHz of 10 dB bandwidth.

A lightweight X-band organic antenna array with integrated SiGe amplifier

This paper presents an organic, lightweight X-band antenna array with integrated silicon germanium (SiGe) low noise amplifiers (LNA) and 3-bit phase shifters (PS). The SiGe LNAs and PSs were successfully integrated onto an 8x1 lightweight antenna stack-up utilizing a multilayer liquid crystal polymer (LCP) substrate. Successful comparisons of the measured and simulated results verify a working antenna array with a return loss of around 10 dB across the frequency band of 9.25 GHz – 9.75 GHz. A comparison of radiation patterns for the 8×1 antenna with integrated SiGe LNA and the 8x1 antenna with integrated SiGe LNA and PS show a 16 dB and 25 dB increase in gain, respectively. The ultimate goal is to develop an airborne X-band radar capable of a beam steering of at least ±40° through utilization of low power highly integrated SiGe electronics on a low cost multi-layer organic platform. This paper represents the first successful demonstration of a building block prototype (i.e., a fully integrated, high gain X-band antenna with SiGe LNAs and SiGe phase shifters) that can be expanded to a complete active phased array for remote sensing applications in X-band.