Michael Jenning

Verification and demonstration up to 67 GHz of an on-chip antenna pattern measurement setup

In this paper, an antenna measurement setup built on a commercially available wafer prober is introduced. This setup allows to measure the radiation pattern of on-chip antennas up to 67 GHz. The measurements are performed in the near-field of the antenna under test and therefore a near-field to far-field transformation has been included. This transformation and the entire setup have been verified by a measurement of a standard gain horn antenna and further evaluated by a 2 by 2 patch array. The results show a high agreement with the simulation data.

Energy-Efficient Transceivers for Ultra-Highspeed Computer Board-to-Board Communication

Enabling the vast computational and throughput requirements of future high performance computer systems and data centers requires innovative approaches. In this paper, we will focus on the communication between computer boards. One alternative to the bottleneck presented by copper wire based cable-bound communication is the deployment of wireless links between nodes consisting of processors and memory on different boards in a system. In this paper, we present an interdisciplinary approach that targets an integrated wireless transceiver for short-range ultra-high speed computer board-to-board communication. Based on our achieved results and current developments, we will also estimate energy consumption of such a transceiver.

Miniaturized integrated Butler Matrix for 180 GHz chip-to-chip communication

This paper presents an improved Butler Matrix (BM) beam-switching network. The BM is designed for a thin film Benzocyclobutene (BCB) technology on a silicon wafer. It can be placed on an interposer or 3D chip stack. The operational frequency will be at 180 GHz and the bandwidth exceeds 30 GHz. The footprint of the BM is below 1 mm2. The field of application is ultra high speed short range inter-chip communication in the mm-Wave frequency range.

Wideband half-cloverleaf shaped on-chip antenna for 160 GHz – 200 GHz applications

A wideband on-chip antenna for the frequency range of 160GHz to 200 GHz has been developed and taped out in the IHP SG13 process. Simulation results show a maximum absolute gain of 2.2 dBi at 200 GHz. The antenna is designed for high-speed board-to-board communication.

4 × 4 Butler-Matrix for 170 GHz applications

This paper presents the design of a 4 × 4 Butler Matrix for a 170 GHz application. The two comprising elements, the coupler and the phase shifter, will be discussed in detail. Furthermore, their interconnection forming the Butler Matrix will be presented and simulation results will be shown and discussed.

On-chip antenna pattern measurement setup up to 325GHz

This paper presents a setup for on-chip antenna pattern measurements built on a commercially available wafer-prober. Since the measurements are performed in the near-field, a near-field to far-field transformation is included. First validation measurements at 60GHz show a high agreement with simulation data and the results of the ongoing measurements at 300 GHz with the measurement setup will be shown at the conference.

180 GHz on-chip integrated bow-tie antenna

This paper presents an on-chip bow-tie antenna that will be used for high-speed short-range communication between computer chips. The antenna design with a size of less than 1.5mm2 has been tailored for a SiGe technology and was successfully tapped-out. An investigation of the influence of the thickness of bulk-Si on the antennas performance is presented.

Determination of dielectric permittivity and losses up to 67 GHz

For the successful development of circuits and antennas in the mm-wave frequency range, material characteristics have to be known. These characteristics mainly comprise dielectric permittivity and losses. The permittivity influences the dimensions of circuit elements, while the losses will determine the overall suitability of materials. This paper will present measurement methods and results for various typical RF substrate materials up to 67 GHz.

On-Chip Integrated Antennas for 200 GHz Applications

This paper presents four different on-chip antenna elements. They are two bow-tie antennas, one slotted and one fractal version, a half cloverleaf antenna and a stacked Vivaldi antenna. All antenna elements are designed for an operational frequency of 200 GHz for wireless computer board-to-board and chip-to-chip communication. The antenna elements were successfully designed and fabricated in a 130 nm SiGe semiconductor technology. After fabrication, S-parameter and radiation characteristics measurements were conducted on a wafer probe station. The results presented show good agreement with the simulated designs. The gain of the antenna elements is above 0 dBi and all elements achieve a bandwidth larger than 10 GHz.

On-Chip Antenna Pattern Measurement Setup for 140 GHz to 220 GHz

An on-chip antenna pattern measurement setup for the frequency range between 140 GHz to 220 GHz is presented. By measuring the electrical near-field of the Antenna under test (AUT) and a subsequent near-field to far-field transformation, the radiation characteristics of the AUT can be determined. Therefore, different Open-Ended Waveguides are discussed regarding their use as near-field probe antennas. The setup is based on a commercially available wafer-prober to ensure the use of standard test equipment in circuit testing labs. To demonstrate the functionality of the setup presented, the measured radiation characteristics of an on-chip fractal bowtie antenna are presented and compared to simulations.